Regarding the Feminine Gender
by that's-a-Secret
Summary: Stranded far from the Thousand Sunny on an island that isn't quite an island, the manliness of a certain pair of pirates is about to be tested like never before; and when the G-5 comes along, Tashigi in tow, things get a little crazy. (Punk Hazard spoilers. Also, beware of rampant gender swapping. And cussing.)
1. There She Blows

"The heck is that?"

"Isn't it a whale?"

"It's not one of Laboon's friends, is it?"

"Nah. Pretty sure it's up for grabs."

Zoro craned his neck forward. "Think it'd taste good with barbecue sauce?"

The great white whale surged upward and broke through the surface of the sea. Water streamed across its thick ragged skin, skin as ancient and wise as the bottom of the ocean floor. A huge black gaze pounded into the ship ponderously.

"Now hold on a moment," Sanji snapped, kicking Zoro in the shin. "Not even Luffy can eat that in one go. Barbecue can wait - how about some sashimi, served with white wine and lemon salt, Robin-chwaaaan?"

Robin smiled calmly. "That sounds wonderful." And she settled back in her sun chair on the deck of the ship, reading a book as she enjoyed the cool ocean breeze. The rise and fall of the ship didn't bother her much.

"He's mine," Zoro smirked, drawing a sword.

"No he's not," Sanji snapped, kicking into the air, "he'd swallow a moss-head like you for breakfast! I've got this."

The sounds of their fighting sailed across the waters. A few moments later, the sounds died down, and Robin glanced up from her book. The waves had become suddenly still.

"Hey, Robin," Usopp said, coming on deck. "You seen Sanji? I need to ask him something."

"Ah...he went fishing with our swordsman. They chased a whale underwater."

"Oh! Awesome!" He leaned out over the ship's rail and scanned the smooth, gentle waves. "Where!? It's not, uh, a dangerous whale or anything like that, right?"

Her face was unreadable. "I suppose it's possible that by now it would have dragged them to the bottom of the sea and then torn them to pieces. I hope we won't see blood in the water soon."

A barely perceptible shiver ran up his legs, and he laughed too loudly. "Hey, come on Robin, don't joke around like that! Those two can't be taken down by one lousy whale!" He stared at the sea, and the sea gave no answers. "...Oh God they're dead."

* * *

Sanji remembered hitting the water in heated pursuit of the whale. The ocean had closed around him like it always did - he was an accustomed swimmer, what with rescuing the damned anchors all the time. He had kicked forward with a controlled burst of speed.

He wasn't entirely sure what happened next.

The water suddenly grabbed hold of him and tossed him like a giant playing with a toy, worse than the crash-landing at Fishman Island, catching him completely off guard. Forget the whale. He was fighting the entire ocean now, with all her fierce currents and violent tempers; and he was losing. Nausea and dizziness set in, and a leaden numbness in his limbs. Somewhere in the back of his mind he hoped that the stupid swordsman hadn't charged in after him. This wasn't an enemy that swords could cut. Sanji gritted his teeth and tried desperately to figure out which direction was up and which was down, then saw a glimmer of light flash past. He grabbed for it, willing his lungs to stop complaining and just hold on, hold on, _hold on_.

He burst into the air. His lungs gulped in sweet oxygen, and then hacked out the bitter residue of saltwater. He shook water out of his blonde bangs so that he could see.

He was sprawled on the soft sandy shores of an island, warmed by a brilliant sun. He dragged himself up and then collapsed on his belly, gathering feeling back into his limbs. Regrettably, it would seem that Robin-san and Nami-san would be missing their promised seafood this evening. Defeated by a whale - this was embarrassing. How the hell had that happened?

"Who are you?"

Sanji's heart skipped a beat. It was a woman's voice, low, vicious, and dangerously attractive. He would have gotten up from his pathetic position immediately, but he recognized the cold bite of steel against the back of his neck.

To his horror, he found himself annoyed by the woman. He quickly shoved the feeling away, though; a man must always be patient and understanding around ladies, even when being held at knife point.

"My name is Sanji," he said carefully. "I was swept on shore by the sea just now. Please, I mean no harm, and I must say I don't particularly mind being entirely at your mercy, but there are matters I must attend to, if you would allow me." If he escaped from her sword he might offend her, but well, so long as he didn't have to actually attack her...

And abruptly, the knife withdrew, as did the woman's footsteps. Sanji blinked. What a generous lady, probably a beauty, he would have to show his gratitude somehow-

"You."

Sanji looked up. The woman was soaked through, with a dark green coat that was open down the chest. She wasn't wearing a shirt. Sanji could feel the nosebleed coming fast.

"Forgive me my lady I-" he started to babble.

The woman raised an eyebrow, the other eye sealed shut by a thin scar. And then Sanji started to notice things. Like the old wound across her chest. And the three swords at her waist. And the suspiciously marimo-like green hair.

"I-I, uh..."

The nosebleed vanished entirely, replaced by a rush of blood to a different compartment of his head. He tried to force himself to wait and make sure, but before he knew it he was gnashing his teeth and making the most disgusted face he was capable of, and there was no longer any room for doubt. "...Oh, no, no, you _bastard."_

And Zoro couldn't contain himself any longer. He laughed out loud.

* * *

Tashigi felt a chill.

"What?" her commander snapped.

"No, it's nothing," she fumbled. "I just had a strange image in my mind, that's all. Of that man as a...woman..."

"Don't get distracted! We've got work to do." He tossed her a folder. "Memorize the whole thing. We've picked up the Strawhats' scent - that info might be useful."

"Y-yes, sir!"

She glanced at the cover of the folder and frowned in confusion. Below a picture of a great white whale, it said: "BEWARE THE CURSE OF THE SEA GOD".

* * *

**Words of the Sheep**: this was conceived in the middle of the Punk Hazard arc, right after the fight against Monet, so while the samurai, his son, and Law aren't here and the G-5 is chasing after the Strawhats like usual, there are references to Zoro and Tashigi stuff that happened during Punk Hazard. Kinda confusing, I know.

But after a certain chapter in which it became clear that Zoro's reluctance to hurt Tashigi is deeper than just a recoil from her face, I had to do something with those two. And if we're going to talk about feminism, of course Sanji's gotta be there. Almost added Kinemon as well, but he's too much of a new character, and Zoro/Sanji stuff amuses me to no end. So there you have it.

2/2/13: Sorry, I edited the first two chapters like crazy and bumped around the plot because the pacing was horrendous. The lovely and amazing reviews I received made me feel guilty about being half-assed about this; so I started really trying to make it good. Enjoy. 3


	2. It's a Mystery

"The one moment I look away because the weather's perfect and Luffy's not bothering me and I'm trying to finish a map those two _idiots_ have to go and get themselves lost!?" Nami screeched, running a hand furiously through her hair. "And because of a giant whale! How did this happen!? Tell me how this happened!"

"I don't know!" Usopp moaned, walking in circles on the Sunny's deck nervously. "One moment they were there, and then they weren't!"

Chopper's jaw dropped. "Eehhhhh!? Did they get eaten!?"

"That's weird stuff, bro," Franky added helpfully.

Robin looked at the seas pensively. The sun was setting rapidly, and the soft glow of dusk glinted on the tips of the waves. "How come the cook, the swordsman and I were the only ones who noticed the whale?" she asked.

"Perhaps, if I may," Brook said, "it was no normal whale? It was certainly not the same kind as Laboon, since it was white."

"But how is that supposed to mean anything!?" Nami shot back. "A whale's a whale! It's not like it can just pop up and grab two guys and then disappear, I'd feel the currents in my sleep. Besides, it's _those_two guys we're talking about. Zoro I could understand - but Sanji? He'd never purposely leave Robin waiting!"

The colorful ensemble of a pirate crew paused for a moment, considering this new situation.

"Then, it's obvious what we gotta do, right?"

Five pairs of eyes (and one pair of eye sockets) turned to the speaker. Their captain slapped his knees and rose to his full height, hand on his straw hat. His grin split his face from ear to ear.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Usopp muttered. Nami pressed a hand to her forehead in tacit agreement.

"It's a mystery!" Luffy declared, bright black eyes shining out from below his hat. "And we're gonna figure it out!"

A sharp crack cut him off, and the crew jerked their attention to the sea. In the distance, a ship was rapidly closing in on the Thousand Sunny, cannon blasts peppering the ocean dangerously close, so that choppy waves beat against the hull. The deck swayed.

"It's the marines!"

"What!? Why now!?"

"I'm so sorry, I should have kept an eye out for them! (Though I don't have eyes.)"

"Gyaahh! My nose! That cannonball just grazed my nose!"

"It's the G-5, guys, it's the Smoker dude!"

Nami dashed toward the helm as the rest of the crew scrambled into defensive positions. "Franky, let's get out of here! We don't have time to challenge the marines, especially without Sanji and Zoro. Finding those two is top priority right now!"

"Wait wait wait-"

"What!?" Nami roared at Usopp. He cowered.

"It's Luffy," he blubbered.

"Luffy, he's - he's-" Chopper choked.

Nami looked up just in time to glimpse a flash of red and two long rubbery arms snap in the direction of the marine ship.

* * *

Zoro surveyed the oceans with a piercing gaze.

"It's that way," he said suddenly, and prepared to dive into the ocean.

A hand grabbed him by the scruff of his coat and threw him back. "We're not swimming!" Sanji roared. "You idiot! How do you know where the Sunny is!?"

"Because it's that way," he responded, as if it were obvious. He pointed at a random cloud in the placid sky. "I remember seeing that when I got out of the water. We came from there."

"That's not how things work! Have you ever noticed that clouds _move_!? Not to mention those currents probably mixed up all the directions anyways..."

Sanji's voice, angry and slightly husky but definitely female, trailed off. He glanced at Zoro, then looked away hastily and starting taking deeper, more anxious drags from his cigarette. Zoro glanced at him quizzically.

And burst out laughing again.

"What!? What're you laughing at!?"

"Ha! Haha! A dartboard will always be a dartboard, haha!"

"Sh-shut up!"

Sanji still had the scruffy blonde hair, the eyebrow that was permanently cocked up in a swirl, and the furiously puffing cigarette between gritted teeth. But he had taken off his jacket ("Only because it's wet, marimo, if you make any shitty comment about this I'll kick your ass), revealing a slim, gently sloping frame beneath his loose-fitting suit, and could it be - Zoro laughed harder - this feminized Sanji was _blushing_.

"You're not any better off, Brussels sprout! Your damned mug is insulting every lady on this planet!"

"You're - pwahaha!"

"Would you stop laughing already!?"

And maybe it was because of Sanji's girlishness, or the ridiculous situation the two of them had gotten into, or the sun and the island were doing weird things to his brain; but Zoro couldn't stop laughing.

"Okay, at first it pissed me off, but now this is plain weird. Would you quit it!?"

He finally regained control of himself and stood beside Sanji again, chuckling quietly to himself. "You look as dumb as ever, swirly-brow."

The cigarette had burned through in record time, and Sanji spat it out and ground it under his heel before lighting a new one. "Forget it. We need to figure out where we are, how we ended up - like this; and then fix it before dear Nami and Robin see me."

"Sure they won't prefer you like this? Being a girl suits a sissy like you."

"I'll show you who's a sissy - " he began, launching up one long leg. Frustration then flashed across his face, and the kick landed weakly in the sand. He was blushing again.

Zoro raised an eyebrow. "Chickening out?"

He spat out yet another cigarette and pulverized it under his shoe. "Like hell. Just trying to figure out if a shitty disgraceful muscle-brain could possibly count as a woman if he happens to be wearing a lady's face." He looked wistfully at the crumpled remains of the cigarette butt, but decided against smoking more. His one box of nicotine relief would have to last for the indefinite period of being marooned to an island with the one living creature whose guts he hated the most.

Zoro glanced down at himself briefly, trying to see what kind of "wearing a lady's face" could make even the cook back off from a fight.

"Coward," he snickered.

Sanji stared at him, a muscle in his pale face twitching. "Oh, fuck it." He thrust his hand into his pocket and lit a cigarette with determination. "At least I'll get to enjoy these before I drown myself."

Zoro looked down at himself again, and frowned. It was slightly disconcerting to see himself there, drastically altered, strangely foreign, yet also his own self, somehow, as if in some other life he had always been female. But he was thinner, in most areas at least; and that worried him. He flexed his arm experimentally, and though it was a comfortable motion that remembered the grasp and steadiness he had pounded into his body with years of training, it seemed to be missing something.

Nervously, his hand fell and almost subconsciously touched the hilts of his swords. Zoro's life centered around the sword - if his fighting prowess was undeterred, he would barely notice a few harmless transformations here and there. But at his core, he was also a swords_man_, and he had a feeling that becoming a swords_woman_ overnight was not a challenge he particularly looked forward to.

An image of an indignant woman's face, glasses pushed up to her forehead, skittered briefly at the edges of his mind. He pushed it away hastily.

"Sad excuse of an island," Sanji muttered then. Zoro looked up.

He was standing dejectedly in the island's single patch of shade, beneath a palm tree that seemed to spring out of the sand like a plastic prop. The island itself was roughly circular, and barely extended more than twenty feet in diameter. He leaned against the palm tree before closing weary blue eyes.

"How long d'you think you could last without water?" he asked quietly.

"Long enough," Zoro responded easily. But he watched his companion, and he noticed. "We could always find the others faster if we swam, you know."

"No way in hell." His voice cracked. But his eyes were open and focused again. "Three days is the usual. We've got time. Now let's catch us some fish."

* * *

**Words of the Sheep:** if Sanji and Zoro get marooned on an island...that has nothing but one palm tree on it...I realized that Sanji would probably get bad memories of his starvation period. And so the story became slightly more angsty than I predicted.

But Tashigi is coming soon, and we'll have a new flavor of angst: feminism/food/bushido angst.

Shush I like this kinda stuff.

and WARNING: OOC's will appear quite liberally as gender swappings are played with.


	3. You Cut His Topknot

Several bloodthirsty men with swords always failed to faze Robin, these days, just as her crewmates' habitual chaos never failed to amuse her. She watched the battle unfold around her with a faint smile on her face, leaning easily on the rail of the Sunny. When Luffy stretch his arms to the G-5's ship, the smile grew, and she blossomed an eye on his back to follow the festivity.

Her captain slammed into a cluster of marines and quickly righted himself on the deck. After a quick evaluation of the terrain, she closed the eye, then opened a new pair. And there she was, watching him from an obscure corner of the marines' ship, between a few wooden crates and the cabin. She was careful not to draw attention as she twisted the necks of the men who came too close.

"Heeeyyyyyyyyy!" Luffy bellowed, his fists rising to the sky, his body unable to contain the energy in his voice. "Smokeeeyyyyyyyyy! Where are yaaaaaaa!?"

A streak of white shot toward him. He ducked down low with a broad grin.

"Found ya!"

Smoker, Vice Admiral and leader of the G-5, grumbled something like "Fool jumps right at me" and materialized in front of Luffy, glaring darkly. The female marine, Tashigi, was at his side in an instant.

"Stay back, men!" he barked to his subordinates. They each took a step back, wide-eyed and sweating. "You won't stand a chance against Strawhat."

"Yup, that's right," Luffy nodded happily. "Anyways, Smokey, I gotta ask you something. We met a mystery whale!"

Smoker quirked an eyebrow up, as expected. But the woman made a distressed sound. "A whale?"

"Don't respond, Tashigi! Strawhat, you're not getting away this time."

"Nah, we will!"

The corner of Smoker's mouth twitched.

"So anyways, we met a mystery whale just now! Or Robin met him, I didn't get to see. But she said he was a biiiiiig white whale, thiiiiiiiiiiiis big," he threw his arms out to the sides for emphasis, "and he took Sanji and Zoro! You're marines, right, so you're supposed to know about this kinda stuff. Can ya tell us where to look for them?"

"The Curse of the Sea God," the female marine gasped.

Robin pursed her lips. A curse? Strange, also, that the Marines knew something Robin herself did not - it rather insulted her pride. Luffy was still talking, though, so she restrained herself from stepping forward.

"You know him!? Is that what he's called!? Is he cool!? Is he!?" Luffy asked excitedly.

"Watch it, Tashigi," the Vice Admiral grunted around his mouthful of cigars. "Strawhat, you-"

"You said he took Black-leg Sanji and Roronoah Zoro," the female marine pressed on. "What do you mean?"

"I dunno, they were fishing or something and then they got lost. Why?"

"How long ago?"

"Hmmmrmrr, might've been an hour ago, probably, yeah. C'mon, I wanna see that mystery whale! Has he taken Sanji and Zoro to some bad place!?"

But the female marine wasn't listening anymore. She glanced at her superior with an expression made of steel.

"Don't stop me," she said. And then she was throwing off her marine cloak and dashing for the ship's railing.

"Tashigi! Stop this right now!" the Vice Admiral roared, but hesitated to go after her, his eyes darting between her and the infamous criminal before him. "Tashigi!"

Luffy cocked his head.

The female marine had grabbed two pairs of handcuffs from her cloak and was strapping them to her belt, alongside her sword. "Two of their strongest fighters are under the influence of the Curse - this is the best opportunity to apprehend them that we will ever get!" she called over her shoulder. "I'm going underwater! I'm not a Devil Fruit user, I can do this!"

"You can't defeat them alone!"

She paused, teetered precariously on the edge of the rail, and smiled grimly. "I'm a woman. I won't have to."

Robin almost reached out a hand to pull her back, interrogate her, learn whether there was a threat to the swordsman's and the cook's lives - but the fascinated glint in her captain's eyes stopped her. She watched the female marine leap into the air, suspended in space for a fraction of a second, and dive neatly into the ocean waves.

* * *

Sanji felt...conflicted.

He looked down at himself for the hundredth time, surreptitiously unbuttoning the top half of his suit (to allow some breathing room, that was all, nothing dirty about his intentions, really). The algae head had dived underwater a few moments ago, so he was alone. Nobody would ever know if...

But, no, no, female or not, this was still _his own body. _He could never live with himself if he fell so low as to peek at himself. It was borderline insane, uncomfortably narcissistic, and while being swapped by some Devil Fruit's powers into Nami's divine body had been heaven, being turned into a lady was strangely...not strange. This body was most definitely his own. His legs were the same height, his hands as deft as ever, and though he was incredibly irked that he was rather lacking in certain departments that the shitty muscle-brain was _not_, he felt oddly comfortable with the way things were. Sleek, elegant frame; the waist a perfect hourglass; the chest - no, no, he had to stop thinking about that...!

...He needed a mirror.

A splash interrupted his musings. "Hey, pervert!" Zoro called, sloshing up the beach.

Sanji jerked his hands behind his back innocently. "What, shitty marimo!?"

"There's nothing down there, just this huge, really weird-looking rock. Think you could cook the palm tree?"

Nothing down there. No fish, no edible greenery, no fresh water. Shit.

He tried to shrug off the sudden tightening of his stomach and responded mechanically, "We can't eat the palm tree. It doesn't even have coconuts on it WAIT WHAT ARE YOU DOING PUT THAT BACK ON!"

Zoro stopped, one arm halfway out of his coat sleeve. "It's wet."

"I DON'T CARE I DON'T NEED TO SEE A LADY STRIPPING IN FRONT OF ME EVEN IF IT'S JUST YOU PUT THAT BACK ON!" Sanji shrieked, his face burning. He kept his eyes fixed on the base of the palm tree as he lit another cigarette and rammed it between his teeth. "I don't know how it happened, but you're in a lady's body right now - so have some damned dignity!"

He heard Zoro smirk and pull the sleeve back on. "Says the guy with half his shirt buttons open."

"Shut up! Your shirt doesn't even _have_ buttons!"

Zoro laughed. It was getting on his nerves, that laugh - normally Zoro would just mouth right back, or at the most growl and draw his swords. But this was a wide, loud, open-hearted laugh, with an added breeziness from his feminine voice. And it was _annoying._

"That the best you can do? At least I've got something to hide in here."

"There's nothing wrong with ladies who are bestowed with less!" Zoro more or less covered up, Sanji felt it safe to turn back around. He glared at the woman's face and was surprised to find it easy to accept as Zoro's. It was exactly as gruff and grating on the nerves as the swordsman's always was.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, cutting board."

"What - did you just call me a kitchen utensil!?"

"It fits. You know, I wonder what this says about our male selves."

"Fuck, you are _not_ going there!"

Damn it all, Sanji wanted to scream. There were more pressing concerns at the moment than this! They were marooned on a barren island, for starters. And there was the whole turned into women part - they didn't have time for sitting around quipping at each other!

"Cutting board," Zoro said, one corner of his mouth turning up.

"That does it, I'm burying you into the sand until you're just a patch of grass, even if - even if you look - even if - I'm burying you!"

"I'd like to see you try!"

The exchanged blows back and forth, flames and sparks flying. In a burst of inspiration, Sanji grabbed onto the palm tree, spun, and launched a vicious kick using the solid trunk as leverage. His shoe nicked green hair.

"Hey! What was that!? Palm Tree Attack!?" Zoro fumed. "Lame!"

Two swords just barely stopped the force of Sanji's next kick. "Wait till I make diced lettuce out of you, then you'll see what's lame!"

Zoro growled, and twin blades hissed through the air. Sanji dodged easily.

The palm tree wasn't so lucky.

An almost inaudible _swish_ as metal bit through wood; a moment passed, nothing really happening; and then the palm tree creaked down and crashed onto the sand, split into two neat pieces and a sad little stump. Sanji cursed and grabbed his jacket as it fell. It had been drying from the fronds.

"You idiot, you just killed our shade!"

Zoro shrugged. "What? It's just a palm tree."

Sanji shook out his jacket. Thankfully it was still intact, if waterlogged from seawater. "Fine, whatever," he sighed. "This is a waste of time. Look, you stay here, and I'll Sky Walk and see if I can see something-"

The island lurched.

"...Did you feel that just now?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this..."

The sands shifted. A small wave rippled out from the edges of the beach, cutting an expanding ring into the placid seas.

"Wait. That was a palm tree. You only cut a palm tree, right?"

The flat surface of the beach suddenly tilted high, and Sanji tumbled down the sand and into the water.

"Shit!" he gurgled, kicking back toward the surface. "Too careless!" The ocean currents threatened to pull him under again. He fought back, twisted and thrashed; but then something much more solid than water grabbed hold of his legs. It squeezed, and it fucking _hurt_, like his legs were being crushed into jagged rocks. It dragged him down a few feet, and then stopped just as abruptly. He found himself facing the island's base.

Where sandy shores ended, rock cliffs extended down for what looked like miles, broadening out into a strange stone formation that was vaguely rectangular. Like Zoro had said, the island was lifeless.

Or at least, it should have been lifeless...

Sanji looked down and stared at the giant black fist wrapped around his legs. Normal rocks did not reach up to grab people. Normal rocks did not make islands move. Normal rocks would have burst into a million glorious pieces upon contact with Sanji's fury. He looked up slowly.

The rock cliffs in front of him cracked, shivering free from a few loose pebbles, and an eye snapped open with the sound of a cannon. It was the size of the dishes containing Luffy's meat - a huge, brown eye.

It swiveled to look at him.

* * *

Shusui sank deep into the trunk of the palm tree, and the island trembled. Maybe it wasn't a palm tree, after all. Kitetsu throbbed in his other hand.

The island swayed beneath his feet. Zoro almost slipped on the sand like the cook had, but his sword held his place. He tried to listen to the rumbling of the rocks. This wasn't an earthquake. The earth's breath was too erratic and shallow.

And then a feeling that reminded him of the Sunny's Coup de Burst - a sudden lurch, followed by a heavy weight in his core. He gaped as the sea's horizon dropped, dropped below the island's edge, and a booming roar thundered through his body.

The island was rising.

"Blurmlglglrubmlaffkackahfcou gh SHITTY SWORDSMAN!" a husky female voice choked. Sanji. Zoro swung himself to the edge of the island, careful to keep himself attached to the palm tree, and looked toward his voice.

A monstrous black form had risen from the sea, water still cascading from the surface. Another form held a wriggling Sanji. His legs were pinned inside a rock encasing that looked suspiciously like a giant fist.

"How the hell did you get yourself in there!?" Zoro yelled at him. His voice, he was peeved to discover, sounded more screechy and desperate than his male voice would have.

"It wasn't me! You-" The rock moved again, oddly smooth and controlled. Sanji was wrenched underwater and then back up again. "This is all your fault!" he sputtered.

"What!? How is this my fault!?"

"The island woke up because you fucking CUT OFF HIS TOPKNOT!" Sanji screamed.

"I did _what_!?"

The island lurched again, and the bulky mass underneath moved forward in a vaguely seesaw pattern, one side attached to the fist holding Sanji, just like-

_-shoulders._

The island was a rock giant wading in the sea, and there were the shoulders, and the right hand gripping Sanji, and between the shoulders-

-_I'm on its head._

Zoro growled and slashed down with Kitetsu. To his shock, the blade sank through the sand and then struck against hard solidity with a ringing jolt. This wasn't normal rock. He cursed his own carelessness - he hadn't noticed how strange this rock's breath was, and now his sword was dulled. He sheathed Kitetsu, drew Shusui out of the palm tree (topknot?), and leaped into the air.

The island made a deep, groaning bellow and turned its enormous head. As Zoro landed on its right shoulder, a great brown eye found him.

"The second I get out of this shitty death grip I'm kicking your face in so hard nobody will tell if you're a man or a woman anymore I swear-"

"Just shut up and let me get you out of there," Zoro snarled. _Daishinkan. Great Dragon Movement._

The sword clanged hard against the island's wrist. Zoro stumbled back, his arms numb, and was awarded nothing but a shallow chip in the rock for his troubles.

"What the hell was that, shitty lawnhead!? You call yourself a swordsman!?"

"Shut up."

Why wasn't it working? No matter. One more try, and this time he'd get it. He sheathed Shusui and grasped Wado's hilt, letting himself relax. The island's bellowing, the violent dipping and rising of the fist, the dumb cook's swearing, all faded somewhere distant. There was only the rock and his sword. Breathing. Breathi-

"_Tsubame-shi. Cutting Swallow._"

A female voice, but that wasn't Sanji. Zoro's heart momentarily forgot how to beat.

Behind him, there was the soft whisper of metal through rock, or through tofu for all the resistance the blade met. The ground dropped as the island's fist fell toward the ocean. Sanji let out an undignified screech, but Zoro didn't notice - he was trying very hard not to turn around.

It happened again while they were still free-falling. A sword flashed, and the five fingers separated from the fist neatly. Sanji's legs stretched out, unobstructed. "My savior! My goddess!" Sanji crowed, a ridiculous smile plastered on his face.

Zoro tried not to care. He really did. He scoffed at nothing in particular and carefully examined a fleck of sea-foam in the rapidly approaching waters.

"Black-leg Sanji, you are under arrest."

"Well, grateful though I am, I'm afraid..."

"I'm saving your life. Please surrender quietly."

"I...a-as you wish, milady..."

"Hey," Zoro began in a low growl, glancing in his direction.

Two bright black eyes caught his like seastone handcuffs. Shigure glinted in the light as she braced herself for the rock fist's landing.

"Roronoah Zoro. You are under arrest."

Turned into a woman. Marooned on a walking island. And now..._her._

This couldn't possibly get any worse.

* * *

**Words of the Sheep: **Indeed, I made up "Cutting Swallow." Tashigi hasn't had many moves named yet, so I resorted to Japanese translations of random cool phrases. But hey, it turns out that "Tsubame Gaeshi," "Turning Swallow Cut," is a really famous move by the really famous ancient samurai Sasaki Kojiro.

And I think swallows suit her.

**Thank you so so much for the wonderful reviews! My watchers, I apologize profusely for taking so long to write this. I'll try to update about once a month.**


	4. She's Having Trouble Adjusting

A sheet of white emerged, with infinite patience, to just barely break out of the dark blue depths of the sea. The great white whale sighed like a volcanic eruption from its blowhole, its glistening round forehead seeming to go on for miles. It hardly seemed to notice the huge chunks of rock landing on top of it. Mere yards away, the island gripped its smooth stony stub with its remaining hand and screamed so loudly it caused a tidal wave.

Tashigi landed gracefully on the whale's brow among the giant's severed fingers.

"Thank you," she said to the whale.

He seemed to chuckle; the vibrations nearly made her lose her footing.

Black-leg Sanji blubbered something incoherent before landing awkwardly beside her, a tangle of legs and blonde hair. She yelped, once, and then fell to quietly grumbling to herself. Her hands were securely shackled behind her back. Well, this one was done, for now.

Tashigi gripped her second pair of handcuffs in one hand and Shigure in her other, black eyes scanning the fitful sea. He had been there, right in front of her - but the moment she had let her attention slide, his presence had disappeared, dove into the water probably. She mentally berated her own carelessness. The whale, the falling rocks, the giant walking island currently trying to kill them; these were all insignificant compared to this most dangerous monster of them all. She had to stay vigilant until he was safely contained.

Or, well...until _she_ was safely contained.

"What the hell did you do, woman!?" an alto voice shrieked in the distance. Tashigi spun around.

She squinted.

A patch of grass was flying around the island's head, swinging a sword. She moved to push up her glasses, and her fingers grasped at empty air before she remembered that she'd stored her glasses in her pocket for the swim. She blinked. The grass was still trying to cut the giant rock.

Grass couldn't do that, even in the New World, surely?

There was a deep, grating roar. The island rolled its humongous eye to the patch of grass and grabbed it with its remaining hand. It was impossibly fast - the grass had no time to dodge.

"Damn it - let go!" the voice hissed. The grass kicked its black boots and glared with one eye at the island, arms and swords pinned inside the rock fingers.

...Oh.

Roronoah Zoro turned her attention back to Tashigi. Water was still streaming out of her dark forest coat and her head of green as she roared, "How come _you_ can cut this rock!? I can cut through steel and yet - augh! DON'T SQUEEZE MY BOOBS IT FREAKIN' HURTS!"

Tashigi felt something in her scream bloody murder and commit hara-kiri.

"I'm going to kill you! You're just a giant rock that moves!"

"Roronoah Zoro," Tashigi finally said, regaining her composure. "Your swords are of no use against it."

A dark eye narrowed at her. "And how do you know that!?"

She clenched her teeth - _she'd show him_ - and moved forward. _Soru_.

Her sword bit cleanly through the island's neck. There was a rumble, and a final earth-shattering roar from deep at the island's core - and then it crumbled slowly down. The fist around Roronoah remained clenched. Tashigi ran toward him along the splintering arm and cut off the island's hand from the wrist, but this time she left the fingers intact.

"You cut it!" he hissed - or rather, _she_ hissed, straining against her stone prison.

"So I did," Tashigi responded, trying very hard not to act smug. "Only a woman can harm an Island Walker, you see."

"The hell!? Why!?"

"It's simply the way it is."

The great white whale rolled its own ponderous black eyes to the two airborne women and turned its head to catch them.

Roronoah landed on top of Black-leg.

"_Shit shit_ watch where you're falling you _shitty bastard shit shit s__hit-_" she howled between clenched teeth, nursing the leg she had used to kick the rock away.

"Like hell I can do that when I'm stuck in a _damned hunk of rock!"_ Roronoah spat around a glob of blood. Black-leg's kick had connected with her face, leaving a bright red imprint across her nose and a bit tongue. Tashigi had a feeling it had been on purpose.

Tashigi landed beside them, sheathed her sword, and rested a hand on the whale's forehead. "We're ready now," she said.

And the whale turned its majestic head, slowly, as most ancient and wise things move, and with a ripple of strength that began in its belly and ended at its broad white tail like an enormous wave, it turned around and surged forward, away from the island turned inanimate once more.

Tashigi stood tall, one hand hovering near Shigure's hilt, and evaluated her catch.

"I saw that spectacle - you slew the giant! Oh, your magnificence overshadows all the sights I have seen until now, my love," Black-leg rambled from where she sat, hands hidden behind her back, long legs resting with deceptive casualness in front of her. She was wearing a (thankfully) dark blue shirt that only grew darker when wet, but its dampness clung tightly to her torso and was open halfway down the front, revealing pale skin and gentle curves. "What skill! Compared to you, this useless plant hybrid beside me can't even be called a swordsman."

Roronoah Zoro scowled, forced to crane her neck around in order to face her companion because the rock had landed horizontally. "I could've done it! I just needed to try a few more times!"

From her shoulders to her knees, she was entirely encased in stone, which made things easier for Tashigi. She couldn't see those particularly disconcerting..._things_ on her chest. But even then, the face that glared out was markedly different from the original Roronoah's, in a way that was difficult to pinpoint. The expression was the same - the eye was still narrow and predatory. But the jawline was narrower, or perhaps just less broad. Thinner somehow. The forehead was smoother, the neck was slimmer.

"Hey, you," she snarled at Tashigi. "Let me out."

In a secret compartment of Tashigi's mind, she had to admire how intimidating Roronoah still managed to be despite looking a like a sprig of leek in a brown casserole. But outside, she matched her glare.

"No," she said.

"Why you-"

"Ignore the stick-waving idiot," Black-leg interrupted smoothly. Tashigi turned to meet her crystal blue eye. "Are you here with the marines, love?"

She pursed her lips. Black-leg's tone of voice was sickening, as if women were delicate and fragile, and so he had to speak with excessive sweetness around them. The fact that he, too, was now a woman only made things worse. Subconsciously, Tashigi raised her chin a notch.

"I came alone."

Roronoah barked a laugh. "You think you can beat me by yourself?" she sneered.

"Roronoah Zoro, I came to arrest you and your companion, Black-leg Sanji. But I also came for my own selfish reasons, and for that, I cannot allow my fellow marines or Vice-Admiral Smoker to interfere. I can handle you alone." She gripped the handle of her sword threateningly. "Don't make light of me just because I'm a woman."

"Oh, of course not, I would never," Black-leg immediately crowed.

Roronoah broke off her stare and said nothing.

"But what, ah, selfish reasons do you have in mind? If you don't mind sharing it with us."

"I want to show you how it feels to be a woman," she said softly. "Perhaps then you will understand."

"A woman...?"

"Surely you have noticed?"

Black-leg looked down at herself and blushed. "Well, yeah...but I assure you I'm still a gentleman inside!"

"And that is exactly why I am here."

"You know something." Roronoah said, turning her glare back on Tashigi.

"I do."

"What made us like this? How do we turn back?"

Tashigi pulled her glasses out of her pocket and put them back on. She looked at her prisoners gravely. "The Curse of the Sea God turned you into women. There is no way to turn back."

Silence for a while, as they absorbed this information.

Then: "Tell me where this Sea God is and I'll burn him alive!" and "So all we have to do is find this Sea God and dice him!" at the same time.

"Wait, you can't do that-" Tashigi stuttered.

"Where the hell is he!?"

"No way am I staying like this for the rest of my life!"

"I can't show my face to the flowers of our ship like this!"

"It's all this Sea God dude's fault, right? We'll just make him turn us back!"

"I've already kicked God's ass before, what's another one?"

"_You _didn't kick his ass, _I _did!"

"Since when!?

"Since ancient history! You just lay around getting electrocuted!"

"Well I took down the whole fucking ship with me! You just stood there like a fucking lightning rod!"

"Hey! That's not fair! The only one of us who didn't get electrocuted was Luffy!"

"Listen to me, please!" Tashigi yelled. "You cannot harm the Sea God!"

Twin glares, one eye per person, swiveled to look at her.

"Why not!?" they both shouted.

Tashigi pointed at her feet. "Because this _is_ the Sea God!"

There was another silence, even longer than the first.

"Oh," Black-leg finally said. "Uh...he doesn't happen to, uh, understand human speech, does he?"

The whale responded with a short snort from its spout that sprayed a ten-foot-tall fountain of water.

"Agh! Shit, and I was just starting to dry off!"

A gurgling sound near the spout threatened another burst.

"Shit, shit, nevermind, sorry!" she said quickly. "We were joking about the whole burn-you-to-a-crisp thing! Weren't we, Zoro?"

But Roronoah was looking down at the white whale, and she was grinning. "Hey, Sea God," she said. "Are you strong?"

"Don't even think about it!" Tashigi snapped. She said to the whale, "I am so sorry about this woman. She is having troubles adjusting."

"I'm not a woman!" she growled.

Tashigi straightened. "Perhaps not now," she conceded. "But soon. The Curse takes up to twelve hours to take full effect; and once you have become women there is no going back. I repeat - you will not be men ever again."

Black-leg paled visibly. "...Seriously?"

"Bullshit," Roronoah spat.

Tashigi smiled bitterly. "I have spoken to the Sea God, and he agreed to take us back to the G-5 ship once I slayed an Island Walker. We will arrive in approximately a quarter of an hour."

"Wait. How do you know we won't ever turn back? For all we know you're just playing us for fools and can't talk to whales at all."

"Roronoah Zoro," she said slowly, "I do not lie."

There was a flash of something in her one dark eye - recognition, perhaps. But Tashigi didn't have any time to dwell on it.

The whale turned sharply to the right. Roronoah cursed as momentum caused her rock to roll. Tashigi stumbled and fell on top of Black-leg, whose face turned the color of a tomato.

"Are-are you alright," she began.

"I'm fine," Tashigi said, getting up quickly.

The whale had picked up speed, cutting through the water hard enough to spray its three passengers. Through the stinging sea-salt, Tashigi pressed a hand to the whale's forehead and called, "What's wrong!?"

It rumbled its reply.

"Oh, no." Tashigi whirled around and stared at the sea to their left. "Everyone, hold on!"

"Huh!?"

"What-"

A stone hand emerged from the depths of the sea, cascading water, and it reached ominously slowly for the whale. Tashigi dashed forward and slashed deep into its wrist.

"Holy shit!" Black-leg's voice cried.

A rumbling, grating, deep-down roar echoed across the water. Tashigi whirled around, saw the second hand reaching for her impossibly fast, and stabbed. Shigure drove deep into the rocky palm...and stayed there.

_Oh, no no no no-_

Her sword was wrenched forwards. Desperately she held on, legs clinging to the rock hand for support, until she came face to face with the giant.

This one was bigger than the one she had killed. It eye was huge. The speckled brown iris alone was as tall as she was.

"I don't want to see anymore fucking topknots, damn it!" a husky voice screeched from far, far away. "Shit, shit, why are there so many of them!?"

By sheer dint of willpower Tashigi glanced away from the eye to see what Black-leg was talking about.

The sea was dotted with palm trees rising slowly from the water.

"Let me out!" a lower, surer voice called.

Tashigi turned back to the giant eye. No problem, she told herself. She was strong. She was a swordsman at heart. She could do this, by her own power.

_Kirishigure. Cutting Drizzle._

The hand was cut clean in half, her sword free. The giant roared again and withdrew its disabled hand. She glared at it triumphantly.

"Watch it-!"

She saw it at the same time Black-leg did - the giant hadn't withdrawn out of pain. It had been winding up. The hand was only a stub now, but, as she realized too late, that did not make it any less deadly. She tried to dodge, or at the very least block the attack. She wasn't fast enough.

Giant rock clubs are painful.

She felt the burst against her side, felt the wind tear at her face and hair and clothes, and then felt the white slam into her face and knock stars across her vision. Shigure was no longer in her hands. Somewhere above her, two voices were yelling.

And the whale was bellowing in pain.

"Suck it up you shitty whale, the lady has it so much worse-!"

"Let me out, I can't move damn it-!"

The ground dropped out beneath her, and suddenly she was drowning. She forced the dizziness away and kicked out towards what she hoped was the surface of the sea.

The currents pulled her back.

She clawed desperately at the water. Please, she begged to nobody in particular, if I must die, let it be in battle. Let me die with my sword in my hand, honorably. Let me die with my pride. Not like this. She struggled to keep salt water out of her lungs, clamped both hands over her mouth. Not like this.

And then a hand grabbed onto the back of her shirt and pulled her out of the water, into the air. She gasped, choked, coughed, breathed in.

"-are you alright the shitty bastard hurt you and I couldn't protect you and _ohmygod._"

The hand let go of her abruptly. She was plunged into water again momentarily, before her limbs regained feeling and she began treading water. She spat out the bitter taste of seawater and wiped water out of her eyes, taking a moment to catch her breath.

She blinked at the twilight sky. This wasn't the same patch of ocean she had just left, the one with the walking islands and the whale. This sea was empty. At first she was relieved, but then the relief was replaced by a sinking feeling in her stomach - there was no land at all here. No animal life visible, either. Nothing but water.

Next to her, Black-leg Sanji was staring at her with one wide, bright blue eye. The other pirate wore a brooding, troubled expression. Her arms were free from the rock now, and they held a sword.

"Shigure!" Tashigi gasped. "You - how did you break out of the rock!?"

"Currents smashed me into a giant's leg," Roronoah said tersely. Her voice was strangely hollow as she looked at the sword.

"Give it back!"

A dark eye searched her face, and Tashigi bit her lower lip.

"Shigure is my sword! How dare you take it from me without even a proper fight!"

"Listen," she said suddenly. Her low alto voice seemed charged with a thunderstorm. "What would you do if you became a man?"

"Excuse me!?"

"Would you be different? How would you change?"

"I don't know what this has to do with-"

Tashigi stopped. It was her voice. Something was wrong with her voice - it was lower. Brassier. She touched her throat.

...Was that an Adam's apple she felt?

"Shit," Black-leg breathed, a little shakily. Her face was red as fire.

There was no getting around this one, now. Tashigi looked down at herself, dreading what she would find.

* * *

Smoker bit three cigars clean in half.

"...Did you hear a scream just now?" he growled.

"Uh, no, I don't think so. Is, uh, something the matter, Commander Smo?" one of his subordinates asked hesitantly. Another smacked him in the head, hissing quite clearly, "We just lost the Strawhats _again_, of course he's gonna be pissed!"

Smoker glared at the two of them darkly. "Nothing is the matter," he said slowly.

Why would there be? Tashigi wasn't stupid. It meant nothing at all, that sudden mental image of that woman as a...man...

"Commander Smo!" another man cried from inside the cabin.

"What is it?"

"It's the folder! The one about the Sea God! The devil woman must have taken it - it's gone!"

* * *

**Words of the Sheep:** shucks this took a long time. I am so sorry. I'm also falling terribly behind with my original stuffs, and in between school and getting into college and life in general I think I'm drowning.

But I finished chapter 4. Eat that, suckers!

I think my pacing has gotten skewed, and Tashigi is probably OOC, so if this is confusing or you have any complaints please tell me in a review and I'll see what I can do.

Oh, and don't worry, I will explain how the Smoker lost the Strawhats in the next chapter. See you then!


	5. You Lean Which Way Now?

edit 5/25/13: I changed this chapter. A lot. Take it as an apology for being basically dead for two months. Since I'm over the normal time frame, anyway, I've been taking my sweet time to make this and the next chapter as absolutely perfect as it's within my ability to make them - hope you don't mind. (Man am I annoying sometimes, lol.)

* * *

"Did you see that did you see that did you see-"

"Yes, Luffy, I saw. Now if you would please _shut up!_" Nami yelled, smacking him across the head.

"So that was the great white whale of legend," Brook said. "Yohohoho."

"Laboon was cuter," Usopp said with a comforting pat on a bony shoulder.

Nami rubbed her temples and sighed. She owed that whale, she supposed - it had simply appeared, out of nowhere, and this time she had seen. That enormous white expanse glistening in the sea was still emblazoned in her mind. Its spout had been ridiculously huge, and the geyser of salt water it had sent up practically coated everything in the vicinity with a waterfall. Visibility was thus rendered null, so she hadn't been able to look for the idiot monster duo; but at least the terrifying Smoker guy had been incapacitated. Franky had dispatched the Shark Submerge in moments, and before the steam had even started to settle, all four Strawhat ability users were languishing on deck, all of the G-5 stragglers still on board were booted into the sea, and the ship was clipping along at 20 knots and not slowing down.

"Even so," she grumbled. Then she crossed her arms and said, louder: "Even so, I don't like that whale."

"Whaaaaat? Whyyyyyy!?" Luffy whined from where he had flopped onto the grass.

She hesitated, then killed her ego and said, rather waspishly, "I didn't notice it until I saw it."

Franky lifted his sunglasses. "That's kinda how people notice things, sis," he said with a raised eyebrow that could be interpreted as either patronizing or honestly confused. Chopper and Usopp nodded their agreement.

"That's not what I meant!" She raked her hand through her hair. "It's just, something that big is bound to cause huge underwater currents before it even gets close. Same thing happens when it leaves. But there was nothing. I couldn't feel it at all until it broke the surface, and even then there was nothing but the surface waves from any normal splash - a pretty small splash at that, like Merry sized. It's not natural. I don't like it."

"But you saw it," Robin said. Her demeanor was calm; she was thinking. "You all saw it."

They nodded.

"Oh, and that reminds me, I saw someone else too!" Usopp piped. "There was a woman, that female marine who's always with Smoker. And you won't believe this when I say it - but she was _riding on the whale."_

"Really!?" Chopper squealed.

"Usopp," Nami sighed, her fist raised threateningly.

"No no no I'm being serious! She was standing on the whale's forehead, just like this - " he threw his body into his favorite victory pose, except with his finger stabbing out to the side, not up " - and she cried, 'Take me to your leader!' and - "

The fist came down, as did Usopp's nose, straight into the lawn. "Usopp. Nobody was close enough to hear anyone say anything."

"Well okay, maybe she didn't say those words exactly, but I swear on my two years' worth of training she definitely said something!"

"Actually," Robin interrupted, before Nami could get in another strike, "Usopp is speaking the truth."

There was a brief moment of shock on all sides. Usopp was the first to recover.

"See!? Told you so!"

"Luffy and I witnessed the female marine dive into the ocean the moment she heard of the situation of our cook and swordsman."

"Wait she knows!?"

"Luffy _what were you doing over there!_ Now they know we're at half our fighting force!"

"Don't tell the enemy our secrets, Luffy!"

"Whaaaat, it's fine! I trust you guys. The marines can't hurt us." He laughed, and his bright eyes turned away from Nami and looked with interest at Robin. "Yeah, she just jumped in! I was surprised." The way he said it implied that, no, he wasn't, not really.

Robin continued, "It may be that she was speaking to the whale to control it. She seems to know many secrets about this whale, after all - secrets that appear to have much to do with our own problem."

"You mean what happened to Zoro and Sanji?" Nami drummed her fingers on her arm nervously. "What did the whale do to them?"

Robin smiled mischievously, then reached into her blouse (Nami was suddenly thankful Sanji wasn't there to see - he was overworking Chopper enough as it was) and pulled out a blue folder.

"This may contain some of our answers," she said.

"Ooh, you got that off the marines!?"

"Way to go Robin!"

"Supah, sis!"

"Nothing less from our beautiful archaeologist."

"Nice, Robin! What's in it?" Nami stepped closer and squinted at the cover. It was glossy and, under Robin's careful protection, untouched by salt water.

"The cover says, 'beware the curse of the sea god,'" she replied almost conversationally.

Nami felt the temperature drop by approximately 5.7 degrees.

"C-c-curse?" Brooke said with a faint clattering of bones.

"S-s-s-sea god?" Chopper stammered.

A soft and pleading whine from Usopp.

Robin only smiled in confirmation, opened the folder, and began to read aloud.

* * *

Night fell rapidly. Sunlight pooled its last faint golden rays along the horizon before finally slipping into a cool blue. The first stars blinked awake, little shimmering points, bright and clear in the sky, as a gentle sea breeze kissed the tops of the ocean waves and lapped softly at the foam.

Tashigi took a deep breath, dove a few feet underwater, and screamed at the top of her lungs.

"O great Sea God!" she yelled. Bubbles flew around her face. "Please answer my call! As a daughter of the seas, I ask for you!"

She swam back to the surface, where cold night air struck her wet skin with a shock. She spat out salt water.

"Is he coming?" she panted, and shrank a little at the sound of her voice. Behind the hoarseness from all the screaming, it was, quite clearly, a man's voice.

"Nah," Roronoah's rolling alto replied.

Tashigi didn't look at her. Refused to look at her.

"Black-leg," she called, "do you see anything!?"

"Not yet!" Black-leg replied from high above. She had temporarily released her from the handcuffs for the search. "But I may have missed something, it's getting dark; I'll look harder-"

"No, it's alright. I don't think the Sea God would return very soon," Tashigi sighed. "To think that it was angry enough to...!" She gestured vaguely at herself, grimacing. "People cannot pass freely in and out of this area; the Sea God himself must escort you. And the only land masses here are Island Walkers, which would be dangerous to approach (for obvious reasons). Our only hope, then, is to somehow find the Sea God and..." she ground her teeth "...and beg for forgiveness."

This was not going according to plan, in so, so many ways. Never had the Sea God simply abandoned humans in the middle of the sea even after an Island Walker had been killed. And never had a _woman_ been turned into a _man._

No. She couldn't think about it. She had to get all three of them onto dry land first; everything else could come later. She tore off her gloves and chafed her fingers together for some kind of reassurance. The sea water was really sapping her strength. So maybe she would be a man soon. But for now she was still a woman at heart, and she was getting them the hell out of this nightmare so that Smoker could relieve her of the two pirates and she could sort through her thoughts in the privacy of her cabin. She wanted to have her sword with her, though - God did she want to have her sword.

Roronoah still held Shigure hostage. She said she would give it back when she felt like it. She refused a duel. Tashigi would not look at her.

Black-leg scanned the horizon one last time. "Beg for forgiveness?" she spat. "This is fucking crazy." She let herself fall into the water with barely perceptible splash. "Damn that whale. It must think it's some kind of hot shot, reigning supreme over this little piece of ocean that nobody's heard of. How does this even work?"

Tashigi opened her mouth, closed it. "New World," she finally said. "Sea God. You know."

"Oh. Yeah, I know." She nodded in understanding.

"But the data should all be accurate. Over the years, there have been several dozen confirmed incidents involving men turned into women in this area. The accounts had thus far been very consistent - a pirate or marine suddenly disappears, and then, a few days later, a mysterious woman appears, babbling about giant whales and walking islands."

"All men?"

"They _were_ all men," Tashigi said. "Not many women sail in waters as dangerous as these, you see. Anyways, a journalist put two and two together and collected these reports in a folder, which was then discovered by Vice-Admiral Smoker. It was never publicized, though." Her eyes glimmered in the deepening twilight. "To save the victims the _indignity_ of having been turned into women, apparently."

Bereft of her cigarettes, Black-leg chewed on her bottom lip, forehead and swirl both wrinkled. "Nothing like this in there, though?"

"No." She looked down at herself, had to resist the urge to stab her bizarrely foreign self right then and there. "Nothing like this."

"So we're the _first,_" Roronoah smirked. Tashigi accidentally let her eyes flicker in her direction, and instantly regretted it as a surge of anger knotted up her stomach. The woman (Tashigi had to keep reminding herself) seemed almost relaxed in the water, floating like some mutant patch of seaweed, tossing up and catching Shigure in her palm idly.

"That's not a good thing!" her companion bellowed.

"Well, whatever. All we need to do is swim until we find that stupid whale, right?"

"Oh, please. Our drifting kelphead actually managing to _find_ something? I'd sooner wear a pink frilly dress and dance with Usopp!"

"It's a white whale the size of Water 7. Not that hard to miss."

"You'll find a way. It's your secret technique. Honestly, if they had a ranking for missing huge-ass things you'd be the world's greatest at it. You're a fucking prodigy."

"Shut up. You go find it then, and see if I don't find it first."

"You want to make this a competition?" Black-leg laughed. "Fine! I'll kick your ass halfway across the Grand Line!"

"Stop that!" Tashigi cut in. "We are not having a competition. We're working together for our mutual survival, so it doesn't matter in the least who finds the Sea God first, so long as we _find him_."

Roronoah grinned. She could see the curve of his lips in the rising moonlight. Every time she caught Shigure the faint rattling sound felt like a stab through her heart. "Sure it matters. Whoever finds him first gets to beat the crap out of him."

"For the last time, we are _not_ harming the Sea God!" Tashigi snapped. And now she was getting a headache. She shrugged it off as best she could, though.

"Why not?"

"Because the lovely Tashigi told us not to!" Black-leg sang.

"Don't call me that."

"Of course! How shall I address you, then?"

"Don't," she said shortly. The cook's pale face fell about a mile down. Tashigi rubbed her temples and closed her eyes to address Roronoah.

"We'll have to be in the Sea God's good favor to get him to do anything. I'll have you know, if you disrupt my dealings with him I have absolutely no qualms shackling the two of you together and then feeding you to an Island Walker."

"You're gorgeous when you threaten people," Black-leg sighed.

Roronoah tossed Shigure up, caught it. "Go ahead, if you think you can."

A high-pitched screech. Tashigi jumped, eyes snapping wide open. A black leg streaked out of the water and nicked green hair. "Don't speak to a lady and our savior like that you shithead-"

Without thinking, she lurched forward, grabbed a fistful of blonde hair, and thrust Black-leg's head underwater. Blissful silence.

And then, Roronoah laughed. Him. Laughing. Her brain short-circuited for a second before remembering that he was now actually a she, so it would make sense for parts of her personality to be skewed. The laughter was of the quieter kind, but with a sarcastic ring that made it as insulting as an explosive guffaw.

"She was actually _defending_ your honor, you know," Roronoah chuckled.

"My honor isn't worth defending if I can't even speak for myself," she spat.

"You're still saying that?" Toss, catch. "You said you'd show us what it's like to be women. How'd that going for you?"

"That hasn't changed. You _will_ be a woman," she hissed.

In the darkness, a row of white teeth flashed, shark-like. "Is that what god says, or is that what you say? Either way I'm not listening."

God, she wanted her sword. "Must I repeat myself again?" The words hurt as she said them; they tasted bitter as they climbed out of her throat and were spat into the air. "There is nothing we can do. This change is permanent. For the last time,_ give up_ on changing back!"

Roronoah tossed the sword up, caught it again. But this time she simply held it in her grip, firm, calm. "If I didn't know better," she said quietly, "I'd think you wanted to stay as a man."

Tashigi opened her mouth, expecting a ready retort.

She couldn't say a word.

A bubbling sound rose up from her hand, then. She blinked at it stupidly before remembering.

"Oh right! I'm-" she bit back the apology as she pulled up Black-leg "-are you alright?"

Black-leg hummed noncommittally. Tashigi took her face in both hands and titled it up toward the growing moonlight to see better. At first she simply looked rather dazed. And then a blue eye met her black ones. And blood started to gush out of her nose.

Tashigi screamed. "What happened to you!?" she cried. "How did you get hurt!?"

"Oh, no," Black-leg said airily in that husky voice of hers, "I feel no pain but the ache in my chest...How wonderful, the feelings of a young maiden! It is as if an arrow from the heavens has struck my heart. Such sweet anguish, such terrible delight!" She wiggled her arms in a pathetic display of joy, and she half-pranced, half-swam in a circle around Tashigi. "It's as if I am falling in love with you all over again!"

"S-s-so sudden, this is too - I mean - _what!?"_ Tashigi stuttered.

A loud, hearty laugh ripped out of Roronoah. "Finally learned something from those two years, have you, cook!?" she gasped. "You lean that way now!?"

Wait, wait, wait. Back up a moment. Tashigi adjusted her glasses and squinted at Black-leg. "Black-leg Sanji, listen to me please."

"Lean what way, marimo!? - oh, yes, of course, Tashigi dearest!"

"When was it, again, that you were cursed?"

"Hmm? Oh, sometime in the afternoon, I believe - about four hours ago."

"Ah. Yes, some people seem to complete the transformation faster than others."

"What?"

"Physical change is not the end of the curse," Tashigi explained. "You have probably become a woman in mind as well."

Black-leg flushed scarlet. "What? No, but - how - why would you say that, my love?"

She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. She hadn't wanted to say it aloud - it made it seem more real, somehow. But the truth was unavoidable. Through gritted teeth she muttered, "I am a...a _man_, now. Your flirtations...are to a _man_."

She stopped there; the realization had hit Black-leg. She looked like a stone had just dropped onto her head.

"-_ohmygod I'm a woman._"

Roronoah threw back her head and laughed.

"Shit! Shit, no, I don't want to be a woman! The flowers! What about the flowers!?"

"If you stop gushing nosebleeds at them," her fellow pirate squeezed in between laughs, "maybe they'll actually start being nice to you?"

"No way! I'm becoming a woman, Zoro - do you even understand the significance of this!? It's all my worst nightmares combined in one!"

Tashigi pressed her fingers to her forehead. The headache was getting to be impossible to ignore.

"Hey - just calm down, cook."

"Calm down!? How can I calm down when I'm turning into the opposite gender!" The lithe black body twisted and turned, desperately searching for something that wasn't there. "You wouldn't understand, you didn't go through Hell! I'm a man, damnit! A man! We need to go find the whale and make him turn me back!"

Tashigi let both hands slip into the water. She raised her eyes to glare at Black-leg.

"Is there something _wrong _with being a woman?" she growled.

"Oh, there's nothing wrong with women, please don't take it that way - I just don't want to _be_ one, you see-"

"Is being a man somehow _better _than being a man? Are women, in some way, _inferior?_"

"No, no, I didn't mean that!"

"Then why are you so against being a woman!? Why do you flail about and make such a disgusting show of yourself at every female that passes you by!? Why do you insist on protecting every woman you've ever met!? Why do you associate us so closely to something as delicate and fragile and useless and _weak_ as flowers!?"

"I-I'm truly sorry," he whined.

"Hey," a low voice snaked across the waters. "Stop acting like such a goddamned prick."

"What did you call me!?" Black-leg shrieked.

"I didn't call you anything." Shigure's hilt rose up and aimed at Tashigi. "I was talking to her."

She felt blood flood into her face, the pounding of her heart in time with a heavy throbbing in the back of her head. The lapping of the waves faded into the background.

"_Excuse me?_" she hissed.

"Do I need to repeat myself?" Roronoah Zoro smirked at her, like a beast measuring his prey. "You talk and you talk - but unless you can prove yourself, nobody's going to listen."

It was not Tashigi who responded. It was not Tashigi who stood up and fought back. It was Black-leg.

"Shut up!" He came two centimeters away from kicking Roronoah in the chin. "How dare you insult a gentleman like that!"

Roronoah laughed. "You call that a gentleman?"

"That's it, you're drowning in your own blood!" He hopped into the air, in front of Tashigi.

"Black-leg Sanji," she said. Her voice quivered, and she hated that, hated its weakness and its foreign pitch. "This is between Roronoah Zoro and I. Please do not interfere."

"Sorry, my love, but that I can't do." He glanced over his shoulder at her, casually, and Tashigi found herself at a loss for what to do. "It's not in my upbringing to sit around and watch while a woman fights a man."

"What, so now it's you and men?" Roronoah drawled. "Whatever happened to you and women?"

He whipped back around. "It's the same thing! A woman is the embodiment of love and beauty - she must never harm a man! She's like a flower, ever elegant and graceful, and who takes pride in serving men. You, shitty blockhead, are a disgrace to the entire feminine gender!"

Roronoah pulled Kitetsu out of his sash, sliding Shigure into its place. "But I _am_ a woman, on the outside, for now. Can you even fight me seriously?"

"Of course I can," the blonde woman growled, lowering her voice. "If you want to touch this marine, you'll have to get through me first!"

"Alright." Cold steel rasped out of its red sheathe. "Show me what you've got!"

* * *

**Words of the Sheep: **Whoohoooooo! I finished! Thank you so much followers and favers and most of all my reviewers! I'm sorry updates are so slow - I mean, I do have a life, surprisingly.

This is one of the scenes I'd wanted to write since the very very beginning of the story. Apologies if it's rather ranty and the plot is slow - this was originally intended to be me exploring the feminist issue. Oh, and just fyi, the frequent switching around of "he" and "she" is on purpose. I miss writing Zoro and Sanji...Tashigi's so serious all the time, her narration gets boring now and then.

Fem!Sanji vs Fem!Zoro with Masc!Tashigi in the middle of the ocean, PLUS Sunny hilarity - comin' up!

-enjoy.

edit 4/15/13: OVER 1000 VIEWS! THIS IS AN EVENTFUL DAY, MY FRIENDS! PARTY WITH ME! (does a nerdy dance) Thank you for your support. I love you all so, so much, seriously.


	6. The World Is Ending!

6/10/13

If you haven't checked, I changed a lot of important stuff in the previous chapter. I also recently added that Tashigi took Sanji's handcuffs off. It was getting complicated.

-enjoy.

* * *

"I'm going to kick some shitty manners into you!"

"Just try it, you goddamned bitch!"

Tashigi had a headache. It pounded from behind her eyes and then circled around to the back of her head, shifted behind her eyes again; and the pirates' screaming and the clashes of metal on hissing steel did not help. A scarred face splashed up for an instant, drew in a deep breath, and then ducked out of view again before sending out a barrage of long air strikes clothed in water. Black-leg streaked like a red meteor across the sky, touched down, and began running on the surface of the water, his footprints alternating between an elegant splash and a slick burst of steam.

She took off her glasses and stashed them in her pocket. What was she doing, anyways, treading water so far away from the fight? She ought to be _there_, where Black-leg was, and silencing them both for underestimating her; she ought to be doing something. Her fingers were frigid and fumbling as they raked salt water away from her eyes. Why wasn't she doing anything?

"You haven't got class at all! You piss me off!"

"And you haven't got a spine!"

"That does it - _Poêle à Frire: Spectre. Frying pan: Spectrum._"

"Oh yeah!? _Otora Nami. Great Tiger Wave._"

Flame rained down from the skies, and then a giant beast borne of water bared its fangs just above the sea - then there was an explosion, and hot steam whipped across the ocean surface. Tashigi dropped into the water before it could burn her face.

But even here, the fight continued. Roronoah was sinking down, Black-leg circling around him with impossible speed. It was obvious that the latter had the advantage of mobility; with Kitetsu in one hand and its sheathe in his other, Roronoah mainly stayed still, whereas the high-jumping Black-leg Style fully utilized both sea and sky. But the swordsman didn't seem bothered by it. He simply stuck the sword sheathe into his sash, drew Shusui, and carried on blocking every kick that came his way.

Sound was warped in the sea. Black-leg's insults came out blubbered, clashes of metal were short clicks all a moment too late, the heat from the fire was felt in uneven waves rather than heard as steam. Underwater, the night's darkness was deep. All she could see of Roronoah's movements were brief glints of steel. She tried to swim closer, but the waves from their fight kept pushing her back.

Then, with a garbled roar, Black-leg's entire body burst into flame. Tashigi squeaked, and clamped a hand over her mouth to keep water out. Not a devil fruit user? Really? What had these people been doing, while Tashigi had been training and fighting and fooling herself into believing she had gotten strong enough to face them? Was it even possible to catch up to them?

Tashigi could see Roronoah clearly now by the hard yellow light. His stance shifted; as Black-leg wound up for an explosive kick, he sheathed both swords and prepared for an offensive move. His left hand reached for the pale binding of Wado Ichimonji.

And paused.

He raised his one eye - slowly, deliberately, he looked at her. His gaze trapped her like Monet's fangs. His lips curved up slowly.

He reached for Shigure instead.

Tashigi didn't know how she could move so fast. One moment she was floating in the sea, debating whether she should stay and watch the fight or come up for air. And the next, ice was coursing through her veins, and everything had turned to fire. Because Tashigi forgot - forgot where she was, forgot that she was turning into a man, forgot that she was letting someone she hated fight for her honor, because there was only one thing in the world that mattered and it was that Roronoah Zoro was going to draw her sword; and she would not stand for that, _would not_, because Shigure was hers, _hers, _and because she was a swordswoman and because she carried all the pride and burdens that came along with such an occupation, she would rather die than see her nemesis use it, he, with her sword, _she would not allow it!_

With two powerful strokes she thrust her nose half a centimeter away from Roronoah's. The two pirates jerked back in surprise, their attacks suppressed before they could be released. She wrenched Shigure out of Roronoah's sash and screamed into his face, so that a curtain of bubbles scuttled around his green hair: "_This is my sword, Shigure is mine,__ don't touch my sword, don't you dare__!_"

She ran out of breath and seawater flooded into her throat. A hand grabbed her by the front of her shirt, dragging them both up and out of the sea. She coughed and gasped.

A splash three feet to her right. Black-leg's voice yammered, "You shitty marimo, stop manhandling the gentleman! What did you do!?"

"Nothing."

Tashigi's breathing steadied, as her thundering heartbeat and the pounding in her head gradually receded. She looked up at Roronoah. He returned her gaze, eyebrow raised, lips quirked up in the hint of a smile. He relaxed his hold on her and swam back a little bit to give her room to breathe, regarding her closely.

Tashigi blinked at the moonlit ocean, and the dripping sword in her hands, securely in its sheathe. She realized, quite suddenly, that she felt a thousand times better now.

She shook herself. "What were you going to do with my sword!?" she snapped at Roronoah.

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that! You were going to use it against your own crew member - have you any idea what a disgrace to me that would have been!?"

"I wouldn't have done anything with it." He shrugged with one shoulder, looking at some random point in the sky. "Just wanted to see how you'd react."

"Why, you're such a bitch!" Black-leg screeched. "I was fighting you seriously, you know!? And here you were toying with the lovely Tashigi!"

"I _was_ serious."

"Then what was that about, huh!?"

"A man has his reasons."

"You're not a man now!"

"Ack - well a woman has her reasons, too!"

"Both of you shut your mouths!" Tashigi snapped. "Why did you do that to my sword!? What did you want from me!?"

Roronoah sighed and assumed a long-suffering expression. "Nothing much. Just making sure that you're still the same person."

"What - what does that have to do with anything!? You don't even know me!"

"I know you enough. We've both swordsmen, aren't we? Even if I'm a woman and you're a man now."

"Augh." Tashigi pinched the bridge of her - his? - nose. "Yes. Yes, I am a man now. But Shigure is still _mine_, whatever gender I am, and I will never allow you to touch it again. The moment we find dry land, I swear I will repay you _in full_ for this humiliation!"

And he - she? - just threw her head back and laughed. "Challenge accepted."

"Whoa, what just happened!?" barked Black-leg. "Did you just challenge a gentleman to a duel!?"

"What about it?"

"You are _such_ a shitty marimo bitch!"

"What!?"

Tashigi tuned out their (strictly verbal, thankfully) attacks and tried to think. The adrenaline was draining away from her - _his_ - body, and the pressing matters of their situation came back to him.

He took a deep breath and looked down at himself. He pressed a hand against his chest miserably. The black T-shirt he had worn was wrinkled there now, and his pants were a little too tight, especially around that extremely disconcerting _thing_ between his...in short, his clothes were an uncomfortable reminder that this was not his female body.

He put his glasses on and let himself breathe. It was something he would have to face - this new self. Strangely, his arms and legs, his lungs, his heart, all functioned perfectly fine, to the point that if he just ignored his clothes everything seemed to be normal. But nothing was normal about this situation - in fact, normal had made an about face and struck off in an entirely wrong direction. His body was the one thing he had always had, the one thing he could entirely control; and now it was no longer his.

It infuriated him. It whined in his brain like Black-leg's sugary flirtations, made the headache threaten to return. It made him restless.

So why wasn't he fighting against his fate? Was it simply because it was inevitable? But then again, when had the Strawhats ever cared about what was inevitable or not? They simply fought for what they believed in; and they won. He adjusted his glasses. "Still the same person" - what did she mean? Was she implying that it didn't matter if he stayed as a man or not? Was he really so alien to himself just because of his gender? Really, in the end, did it even make a difference?

"I hope you drop all your dishes and break them!"

"I hope you drop your biggest weight straight on your feet!"

"I hope you slip and land face first in one of Usopp's experiments!"

"I hope you get stuck in Usopp's Pop Greens and - !"

Tashigi reached out, grabbed both their heads, and shoved them underwater. He counted to five slowly.

"Have you cooled down now?" he sighed when he let them up again, dripping with seawater (and some blood from Black-leg's nose). "We need to get moving. It seems we won't find the Sea God again until light - in the meantime we need to find somewhere dry and warm and _solid _to spend the night. At the very least we can subdue an Island Walker and use it to rest. In the morning at first light, we continue searching for the Sea God."

"Of course, love! And may I ask if is there anything we can eat around here? Sea kings? Seaweed? Marimo?"

"I'm not edible!"

"Oh, you responded to 'marimo'! Good marimo!"

"There probably isn't," Tashigi said. "The records have never mentioned any animals living in the Sea God's Domain, besides the Island Walkers and the Sea God himself."

Black-leg fell silent. A wide blue eye stared at him for a second before she turned away and cleared her throat.

"Thousand Sunny is sounding really good right now, huh?" Roronoah said with a teasing grin.

"Shut up," the cook replied.

"In fact...I think I see it right now."

Tashigi stared. Black-leg had a similar reaction.

"...Don't fuck with me," she croaked.

"Right there."

They turned, blonde hair cascading across Black-leg's face. And sure enough, out of the darkness the Strawhats' ship emerged, deck lights shining warm orange and gold. Tashigi could just make out a familiar silhouette against the lion-headed front.

Black-leg shot up into the air faster than the seawater could follow. "Robiiiiiiiiiiin! Nwamiiiiiiiiiiii!" she swooned.

"Wait, what!?" Tashigi panicked. "Why are the Strawhats here!? This can't be possible - ships can't get here unless they have the Sea God's permission!"

"Hey, it's Sanji!" a voice rang out, clear despite the distance. "Is Zoro with them!?"

"Yeah, it's Sanji and Zoro!" a higher voice chattered quickly. "And that marine, too, remember the one I was talking about!? That's her!"

"Where's the whale?" a sharp female voice demanded.

"I don't see it anywhere!"

"We were looking for you guys!" the first voice yelled again. "Just hold on one sec!"

Tashigi saw the silhouette kind of bend over a little.

"...What is he doing?" he asked. When Roronoah made no response, he glanced back.

Her scarred face was gradually morphing into something like dread. He blinked rapidly. Roronoah? Afraid of something?

"What is-" he began.

"GOMU GOMU NO..."

Roronoah twitched. Black-leg froze and gaped. Tashigi seriously began to fear for his life.

"...LASSO!"

Something whipped out from the deck of the Sunny and wrapped around all three of them. They were thrown together, Tashigi in the middle, squeezed from both sides by elbows and snarls and female body parts, and Tashigi felt extremely uncomfortable for a moment - but there was no time to be embarrassed, because then they were being pulled toward the Sunny, rapidly accelerating over the surface of the sea.

"GYAAAHHHHHH!" all three of them screamed.

They landed head first in the grassy deck. Tashigi scrambled to disentangle himself amidst much jostling and cursing, as cheerful laughs sailed through the air around them. The captain of the Strawhat Pirates rolled on the ground barely three feet away from him, laughing and clapping with his sandals.

"Luffy, god_damn_ you!" Roronoah shrieked from the grass.

Tashigi gasped, "Strawhat Luffy!"

"Ow! Who's this!?" a hulking figure trumpeted. Tashigi got to his knees and found himself at eye level to a striking pair of red speedos.

"Cyborg Franky," he choked.

"Looks like the G-5 sis decided to tag along!" the shipwright proclaimed gleefully.

Tashigi looked around and saw the majority of the crew already assembled around him on the deck. Something like a cross between a raccoon and a teddy bear peaked around the shipwright's hairy, partially metallic leg. "Who?" Tony Tony Chopper asked in a little voice.

"The marine who was always with Smoker," the long-nosed sniper, better known as Sogeking, said. "Or - wait, no...huh?"

Bony fingers strummed a G major chord placidly. "Ah, hello miss. Now, everyone, please relax and enjoy the music of my soul..." Soul King Brook parted his skeletal teeth and made to take a deep breath (somehow he managed to do that without lungs).

"May I see your pant-"

A flaming boot smashed into his jaw and sent him flying high into the sky, bits of bone shimmering after him.

"Don't you dare, you shitty pervert!" Black-leg screamed in an enraged falsetto.

There was a collective gasp from the crew. In the ensuing silence, Black-leg planted both feet back onto the ground - her face was struggling between shock and sheer horror.

"Whoa, Sanji-bro? Voice sounding a little funky there?" the shipwright finally said.

Immediately, her face and posture did a complete about face. She spun happily in his direction and crooned, "Franky! Wow, did you always look this super as a pervert?"

Cyborg Franky's nose fell off. Literally. It took him a while to realize it had happened and to reattach it - and by that time Black-leg had spun off to her next target.

"S-sanji, are you okay?" the sniper stammered.

"Usopp! What a man you've become since I last saw you! Sweep me up in your bronze arms and let's sail toward the stars and the sunrise!"

The sniper opened and closed his mouth like a fish. Then Black-leg began to prance toward the kitchen, crooning, "Just one second so I can make the gentlemen a drink for this fine night - I hope you had a satisfactory dinner? Sincere apologies for neglecting to serve you," and the sniper spun around stiffly and screamed.

"Sanji's turned into a girl!" he shrieked.

The little doctor screamed in kind, at the same time as the musician fell back down with a cry suspiciously like "Yohoho!" He landed headfirst in a large potted plant. The plant proceeded to swallow him whole.

"Gyaahhhhh Brook!" the doctor screamed. "The plant is eating Brook!"

"Sanji's turned into a girl!"

For some reason the two thundered toward Roronoah, of all people, and screamed, "Zoro! Brook's in trouble!" "Sanji's a girl!"

"Hah!?" Roronoah snarled, arms crossed over her chest. When she moved, everything underneath moved too. Visibly.

The doctor leaped into her lap anyways, but the sniper stopped in his tracks. He screamed again.

"Oh God, Zoro's a girl too! The world is ending!"

"Hey!" she growled.

Behind them, the plant chewed the musician for two seconds, and then spat him out back onto the grass.

"Ah...I seem to have dislocated my jaw," he said weakly. "But other than that it appears that I'm unharmed."

"Brook, my dear!" Black-leg exclaimed from around the frame of the kitchen door. "I'm so sorry about kicking you! Are you alright!? I didn't mean to kick you I swear, it's just old habits kicking in, you know, and this gender-swap thing hasn't quite settled in yet, I am so sorry, if you want me to repay you with my body I will do so gladly!"

"Y-...yohoho?"

"Sanji and Zoro are girls!" the sniper yelled. "Oh, and sorry about the Pop Green. Usually it eats the meat and spits out the bones, but, you know..."

"Ah, I see. I'm unharmed because I'm just bones, right? Yohoho, Skull Joke!"

The shipwright, apparently recovered, hopped to the center of the ship and struck a star-spangled pose. "Whatever!" he laughed. "You gals look super as ever, anyways! Zoro-sis! Sanji-sis!"

"Zoro," the doctor said, snuggled comfortably in Roronoah's lap, "do you need bandages around your chest? Yours are big enough to hurt your back, especially if their center of weight keeps shifting. I'll try not to make them too tight to move freely in."

"Oh. Sure. Thanks."

Strawhat just laughed, clutching his stomach and rolling on the deck, the whole way through.

Tashigi swallowed.

"You guys are such idiots," an exasperated voice snapped. Sharp high-heeled shoes clicked on the wooden steps, and then Cat Burglar Nami rounded the corner, hands on hips and wavy orange hair tumbling shamelessly over her bikini. "Robin and I just explained to you guys!"

The moment she stepped into the scene, all the other pirates stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to her. Tashigi wondered at the way they seemed to listen to her more than to their own captain - but perhaps this was simply because she was the navigator.

"That great white whale was the Sea God," she tried to explain. "And since it took Sanji and Zoro, they're obviously going to be cursed now. So is the marine, from the looks of it." Her clear, honey-brown eyes turned to Tashigi sharply. "You're Tashigi from the G-5, aren't you?"

"Ah - yes, I am," Tashigi responded.

"Whoa, glasses girl is a _guy,"_ the sniper said in awe.

"Do tell us if you experience any physical abnormalities, Sanji, Zoro, Captain Tashigi," Nico Robin said in a cool feminine voice. She stood at a further distance than the navigator, but her eyes were watching closer. She tucked one strand of long black hair behind her ear and smiled gently, resting her elbow on a pale, graceful hand. "Besides the obvious, of course. This is an unfamiliar circumstance after all."

"Of course, of course, Robin," the cook said. Another collective gasp, and the younger male crew members huddled together and held a quick, whispered discussion along the lines of "Not perverted at all!"

Roronoah rolled her eye.

Strawhat had finally stopped laughing. Tashigi took a shaky breath and got to his feet.

"S-strawhat Luffy," he began tentatively, then cleared his throat. "How did you get here?" he asked, louder.

The pirate looked up, wide eyes half-covered by the brim of his hat. "Hmm?"

"We had been stranded in the Sea God's Domain - and only those escorted by the Sea God himself can enter or exit the Domain. Did he bring you here?"

"Domain? What's that?"

"It's the ocean that the Sea God lives in, Luffy. We talked about this already," the navigator sighed. She looked at her captain's innocent expression, pressed her palm to her forehead, and said, "A mystery ocean."

"Oh! I get it! Okay!"

Nico Robin tapped her chin with a delicate finger. "I don't believe we encountered the Sea God on our way here. Now this is curious - you say you were stranded in the Domain?"

"Dumped us in the middle of the ocean," Roronoah confirmed gruffly.

The woman nodded, and seemed to think for a moment. Then her eyes blinked brighter under the warm ship lights. "Ah, I see. We could not have entered the Domain - we would have seen the Sea God somehow, correct? Therefore you must have been abandoned _outside_ of the Domain. You say you were left in the middle of the ocean, but it appears this ocean was outside the Domain, not inside as you had originally assumed. The Sea God has already escorted you out."

Tashigi felt his jaw hang loose for a moment.

"...Wait, so you're saying he _already let us go!?_" Roronoah barked.

"So we're free!"

In other words, there was no need to find the Sea God in order to survive anymore. All that was left was the matter of the Curse.

"Alright! Sanji! I'm hungry! Meat!"

"Of course! Would you like sea king fillet? Or perhaps something more on the saucy side? Anything for you love!"

"Not just yet, Luffy," the navigator snapped. The cook scowled at her, then realized what she was doing and looked half tempted to plunge herself back into the sea and drown.

"It's fine Sanji," she said quickly. "More importantly, do you and Zoro want to change back? We can look for the whale once the sun comes up and visibility improves, but in the meantime we'd need to drop anchor so we don't drift too far from the Domain."

The captain frowned. "So something bad happened to Zoro and Sanji, after all?"

The cook shifted on her feet uncomfortably. "Well, not exactly bad, but..."

Roronoah remained expressionless.

The pirate captain rose. He was not quite as tall as Tashigi - in fact, he was shorter than most members of his crew. But when he crossed his arms over the proud scar on his chest and looked on in that open, simple way of his, he projected a broad, magnifying personality that brought him eye to eye with everyone.

"So the whale was what made you different, right?" he asked.

"Pretty much, yeah," his cook answered.

"Should we get him to turn you back?"

Tashigi felt his heart skip a beat.

The cook stared blankly at her captain for a second, then planted both feet casually on the ground, cleared her throat, and thrust her hands into her pockets. "I guess we should," she said slowly. "But..."

The navigator raised an eyebrow. "But?"

"Well, it's just...do you think we'll all have to change back at the same time?"

The archaeologist nodded faintly. "That is a legitimate point," she said. "It's highly likely that, if negotiations with the Sea God fail and we use force, the Curse will be lifted from all those affected by it. It would be wise to be prepared."

"But that's-!" Tashigi began before he could stop himself. He clamped a hand over his mouth and bit off the rest of the sentence; but it was too late.

The doctor gasped and looked at Tashigi, as did the cook. The rest, he only felt the corners of their eyes measuring his reaction curiously. And then there was Strawhat himself, of course. The pirate captain met his eyes straight on.

"Do you have a problem with changing back?" he asked.

Tashigi fiddled with his gloves. "I...I'm not sure," he admitted. It was not in him to lie to these people. "I need time to...to think."

He felt the tension growing in the air, the ship's deck, the muscles in the back of Roronoah's neck. The captain's eyes didn't leave his.

"Zoro. Sanji."

They turned to their captain.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"Sure, Luffy, my love," the cook said immediately. She cursed. "I mean, whatever, shitty idiot...shitty adorable idiot."

"Oh God did Sanji just call Luffy adorable?" the sniper hissed.

Roronoah chuckled a little bit before answering. "We're fine, Luffy."

"Oh God did Zoro just _chuckle_ at us!?"

"Get used to it already, you idiot," the navigator grumbled under her breath.

Strawhat grinned.

"Alright!" he cheered. "We'll talk about this in the morning! But look, we're all together now, and the glasses girl is here too! Let's have a party!"

Tashigi let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. The Strawhats. She should have known.

"Sanji! I'm hungry!"

"Coming right up, my lovelies!"

"Sanji, mind if come with you into the kitchen?"

"Hm? Oh, sure. But don't expect any free food, bitch."

"What - why you! Calling me a bitch now that you're one too all of a sudden!"

The other Strawhats threw themselves into motion to prepare for the midnight party. Tashigi was left standing awkwardly in the middle of the deck, Roronoah promising the doctor to stop by the infirmary later.

"...Why are we having a party?" he asked her when the little Zoan had left.

She straightened, shrugged. "'S how we roll." The captain called her name, so she stalked off in his direction - but not before tossing over his shoulder, "You've got till morning to decide."

He didn't need to ask what she was talking about. He looked on at the gathering festivities, and he argued silently with himself, tried to wrestle out the tangled web of his thoughts into something like a straight line, as in front of him the most dangerous pirate captain of the New World laughed and wrapped his arms around his swordsmaster and said, "Guys, you gotta tell me about that whale! He was soooooo cool! Did you talk to him!? Tell me everything!"

* * *

**Words of the Sheep:** I updated.

(smirks.)

(runs away.)

Really, really sorry for the delay. TashigiFan don't be sad! I luv you! Look, here, you can have the next chapter! And pretty soon SUMMER BREAK WILL BEGIN which means all the crap I've had to deal with for like three months are OVER and I can now focus on completing this story before devoting myself to From This Shore and my original novel. YESSSSS.

If I don't post again within three days, yell at me, kay?


	7. Role Playing

Edit 6/20/13: I can't believe I called Sanji's nemesis, the Okamas, "Otakus." Lol. Fixed now! Thanks, anon reviewer, for pointing that out!

* * *

Sanji was arguing with Nami.

It was surreal.

"You do know that all this time I've been keeping track of how much debt you've accumulated, right?" Nami snapped. Her eyes threw brilliant orange sparks that danced in sync with Brook's cheerful violin and the sizzling fire under the pan. Sanji frowned at her over her shoulder, hands keeping time with stirring spoons and chopping blocks.

"Since when have I ever done anything to warrant a debt?" she asked.

Nami smirked and tossed back her hair. "Easy. In the New World alone you attempted to grope me nine times -"

"I did not!"

"- tried to peek at me in the bath eighteen times -"

"Well, that was..."

"- and made a horrendous display of your extremely perverted thoughts -"

"Agh -"

"- excessive servility -"

"Wait, how is that -"

"- and obnoxious flirtations over seventy times. I could go on, but I think you catch my drift."

Sanji worried a cigarette. "Yeah, yeah," she scowled, "you're a money-hording bitch, I get it. Now what's the shitty point?"

Nami jerked her thumb at the sounds of laughter and out-of-tune singing outside the kitchen door. "If you suck up to Luffy too much, you'll have me to answer for," she said. "It's my belli we're using to buy his meat, you know. And it'll take a while before we reach the next island."

Sanji rolled her eyes. "Sorry, but I don't like taking orders from women."

"_Sanji_," Nami snapped, slamming her palms down on the counter and leaning forward.

"Did you really think I'm so stupid as to risk the crew starving just because Luffy says he's hungry? I'm not just a love-struck idiot; I know what my responsibilities are." She added, "You shouldn't have to worry about the cook's duties, anyways. You're our navigator."

Nami blinked, leaned back, and sighed. "I know that," she muttered. "I know you can handle things. You're Sanji, after all. But it's just..." She paused, and fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist.

"Are you really okay?" she asked.

Sanji looked up as she waited for the soup to warm, and blew a stream of cigarette smoke into the navigator's face. Nami didn't blink, only shook her head and gave the cook a pointed glare.

"I'm fine," Sanji snapped.

"Really."

"Yes, really." She tasted the soup. It needed more tang. She picked up an orange (purchased from the last island) and started to grate the peel, trying to ignore the raised eyebrow Nami was giving her.

"This is kind of weird, you know," Nami said finally. Sanji looked up apprehensively, but Nami was smiling. "You always acted so differently towards Robin and I."

"Oh, yeah, that." Sanji scowled, doing her best to effect complete disinterest in order to hide her embarrassment. "I'm a woman too, now. I won't act like that again until I turn back - _if_ I turn back into a man. You got a problem with it?"

She tapped her leg threateningly, a piece of her mind wondering if it was even possible to kick Nami, their incorrigible navigator with an indomitable will, and whether Sanji would ever regain her sanity on this ship if she did - because kicking Nami was different from kicking Usopp, because Nami was Nami. And ever since Sanji had found herself decidedly attracted to men and decidedly feeling like a woman, she had been almost afraid (except Sanji was never afraid, Sanji simply did not _do_ fear, man or not, she told herself) of returning to the ship. She felt that something fundamental about her place on the Sunny would shift; her relationships with the crew, with Nami and Robin, with Luffy.

But Nami did not cower the way Usopp did, or glower the way Zoro did. She laughed, and waved her hand as if to sweep away a cobweb. "No, it's kind of nice, actually. This other side of you is fun to tease, and you try so hard to be a bitch that it's cute." She spun on her three-inch heels and made her way to the kitchen door.

The blush betrayed Sanji fast. "I - that's not - what!?" she sputtered.

"Oh, and Sanji dear?" With one palm around the door frame Nami leaned back jauntily, a wicked grin playing on her pretty face. "If you're fine with being a girl, then I'm sure you'll be fine sleeping in the girls' room tonight. Which means you'd better listen to the one giving you your bed." And she stuck out her tongue and winked, and the _way_ she did it - she could charm the prices down to ninety percent off in fifteen different department stores.

The irony of her situation did not escape her. Sanji leaped over the counter and screeched, "I'll take care of Luffy, so just _get out of my fucking kitchen, damn it_!" But Nami had already left, her laughter tinkling like ice cubes in lemonade.

Sanji seethed at the empty doorway, until the sweet tobacco smoke permeated her lungs and calmed her significantly.

Nami was Nami, alright.

She caught herself grinning stupidly, hastily replaced it with a scowl, and went back to cooking. She willed the humiliated blush to fade from her ears.

The kitchen door swung open.

"Hey. More sake."

The blush promptly evaporated.

"Get it yourself, shitty swordswoman! What am I, your maid!?"

"Shut up."

The soup was ready. She poured it into nine bowls and balanced everything on a tray, humming to herself under her breath. She was already imagining the men enjoying her food with their big healthy appetites, showing their appreciation (undoubtedly deserved) for the meal through their energy. How could she ever have thought them to be disgusting and ill-mannered? She shuddered at the mere thought of her, the graceful lady who never failed to serve, actually _kicking_ such proud, handsome creatures as men. Men were just so..._manly_. It wouldn't be right.

Zoro got her sake and went back on deck. Sanji didn't mind her. There were more important people to attend to, such as Usopp and Franky and Chopper and Brook, and that absolutely beautiful marine. And Luffy. Ah, yes. Luffy.

* * *

She sat down cross-legged at the helm of the ship with three white _ochoko_ and a tall bottle of alcohol tucked in the crook of her arm.

"Want some?"

Across from her, Robin dipped her head slightly and smiled. "Thank you Zoro," she said, and politely accepted a cup.

The marine Captain shook his head. He was kneeling stiffly with head slightly bowed and eyes shadowed by his bangs, his fists clenched over his thighs.

Zoro shrugged. "More for me, then," she chuckled, and poured the alcohol into Robin's cup before filling her own.

Robin observed her under the warm deck lights. They were slightly removed from the rest of the party, up higher on the wooden helm, and she took the opportunity to better evaluate the subtle changes that had taken place in Zoro. She had never been offered a drink by Zoro before; the cook had always provided her with aged wines and elaborate cocktails, while Zoro had traditionally consumed his drink in inelegant tankards and hoarded it jealously. The pale ceramic was cool and smooth in her fingers.

Well, this was an interesting change of pace, to say the least.

"And there's the shit cook," Zoro said, looking at the grassy deck. Her voice was almost similar to Robin's in pitch, but it contained in it a certain gravel, a predatory readiness that clashed, for the moment, with a begrudging fondness.

Sanji was twirling amongst the five remaining Strawhat men, paying special compliments to Usopp and unsuccessfully managing Luffy's food intake before the navigator stepped in to help, with her fist.

Robin smiled as she brought the _ochoko_ to her lips. "Sanji seems to be faring quite well." The sake was warm, and it glided pleasantly down her throat. "You look rather comfortable with this arrangement yourself, Zoro."

Her gaze shifted from Sanji to Robin, and she raised an eyebrow. "Do I?"

"Of course. Much more comfortable than the marine beside us, surely."

The formerly female marine looked up sharply at Robin. He realized his mistake almost immediately, but was too stubborn to lower his gaze again. He matched her cool blue eyes, pouting slightly.

"Whatever." Zoro threw the entire cup of alcohol down her throat and immediately poured herself another. In this, Robin thought with quiet mirth, she was exactly the same as her male self. "Doesn't make much difference to me, that's all."

"That has to be a lie," the marine spat. "You think women are weaker than men. I know you do."

Zoro barked a short laugh. "Ninety-nine percent of all marines, male or female, would have their asses handed to them on a silver platter if they dared mess with Robin. Or Nami, for that matter."

"Why thank you, Zoro." Robin smiled, and wondered if this feminized Zoro would be so unusually forthcoming to the male crew members, as well.

"And there you have it. I don't think women are weaker."

The marine tensed, knuckles grinding against the wooden helm as he leaned forward. "Then why don't you _fight us!?_"

Zoro only swallowed another shot. "You're slipping again. Are you a man or a woman? Hurry up and decide."

The marine flinched back, as if struck across the face.

From the party, the familiar tread of dress shoes on grass rose up to Robin's ears; along with a sugary voice.

"Tashigi, love of my life, great storm of my affection! Here I present to you the fruits of my labors -"

"Behind you, cutting board," Zoro said without even looking.

Sanji whirled around and screeched as a rubber hand stretched towards the remaining three bowls of soup. "Luffy, dear!" she implored, desperately trying to dance out of reach. "I'll make you another snack later, so please be patient and wait for Tashigi to have his share!"

"But Saaaaanji -"

"Stop pestering Sanji, you idiot!"

"Ow!"

"Nami, you shitty bitch! Stop disfiguring poor Luffy's adorable face!"

"The price for sleeping in the girls' room is going steadily up, up, up, Sanji!"

"Shit!"

Zoro laughed. Robin's eyes widened slightly at the sheer brightness of the sound, then she laughed as well, softer.

Sanji stomped up the stairs to the helm in a huff, but her expression immediately melted when she caught sight of the marine. She straightened, brushed off the front of her silk suit (still wrinkled with salt water), and strode forward with love printed in the soles of her shoes.

"Your _potage_, Tashigi," she crooned.

The marine flinched again, and glared at the tray offered him.

"He isn't hungry." A brown hand snaked toward the bowls. "Stop trying to spoon-feed him, you sick freak."

"Wha - I wasn't trying to spoon-feed anybody, you green-haired freak!" Sanji screeched, and she jerked the tray up high and attempted to stomp on Zoro's hand. She succeeded in cracking the wooden floor. "And gentlemen first!"

"Hey, it's supposed to be ladies first, idiot!"

"You're hardly a lady, you're a _cavewoman_! Tashigi comes first!"

"And I suppose I am second, Sanji?" Robin asked, pure amusement in her face.

Sanji blinked. "Ah, well - yeah. At least you're an actual lady, I mean," she shrugged, "that's better than this lump of moss at my feet."

"Hey!"

Robin laughed. "What a marked contrast to your usual behavior."

"Yeah, I," she cleared her throat, "I seem to be getting that a lot." She shifted her balance uncomfortably, pinned by Robin's eyes and required by unspoken law to say what the archaeologist would like to know. Because Robin knew - and there was someone there who needed to hear the explanation from the cook's own lips. "I mean, I could have just acted like I always had. But there are roles people have to play, you know. I'm a cook. I'm a pirate. And I _was_ a man, but now that I'm a woman, I'll _be_ a woman, whether it's only temporary or for the rest of my life."

Zoro smirked. "Awfully bold words for someone who was screaming bloody murder at her boobs."

She blushed. "Your mouth is a fucking piece of shit! I was surprised, okay? It really sucked at first. But then I figured, yeah, I'm definitely a woman now; so I'll be proud of it, and do it properly. Because if I didn't, I'd be just like one of those shit-awful Okamas from Hell - I'd be acting like a man with the body of a woman, which isn't much different from acting like a woman with the body of a man - and that's a level I refuse to fall down to (again)." She jerked a thumb to her chest. "I'm Sanji of the Black-leg Style, dammit! And I don't do things halfway!"

The marine pressed his lips together tightly. Robin watched, and noticed that Zoro had seen his subtle reaction as well.

"I suppose this means you can kick women now?" she said to Sanji. Under full scrutiny she blossomed a hand and slid a bowl of soup into her rooted palms.

"Gah-!" Sanji gaped at the last two bowls of soup, and then shot Robin a furious, threatening look. Robin simply looked back, smiling mysteriously. Sanji's expression quickly faded into a slightly sheepish apology. The cook might be willing to kick women now; but the two Strawhat women would always be off limits. Robin had to stifle another laugh.

Zoro tried to do the same thing. Sanji promptly whirled a kick at her head.

"Hey! How come she gets one and I don't!?"

"I _said,_ Tashigi comes first! I hate women without class - you try that again and you'll get your shitty head kicked in!"

Zoro growled, and lunged.

They proceeded to wrestle, one with a foot, one with a hand, and were immediately caught in a very intense stalemate. Robin blossomed a few more hands and very carefully passed a bowl down from the tray to the marine. She laid it with a faint click in front of his knees.

"It's not poisoned, I assure you," Robin said with a smile.

The marine Captain looked up at her. "I know it's not poisoned," he hissed. "You people aren't like that."

Robin nodded. "Of course. I know a certain pirate captain who would be delighted to drink the soup if you do not, though." She sipped her own soup, and reveled in the distinctive balance of spice and warmth that always characterized Sanji's cooking.

The marine sighed, and picked up his bowl. It was still steaming.

"...Why such different roles?" he muttered under his breath. "It is only biology. Men and women both function the same; they are both human; men are simply naturally stronger. It is only biology. That is the only difference. Only a fool would wish to be weaker if given the option, surely?" He drank the soup slowly at first, but soon swallowed it greedily, betraying how truly hungry he was. When he was done, he frowned at the empty bowl.

Robin smiled from behind her hand. "I am ill-suited to answer. I believe this matter is best discussed with a fellow wielder of the sword, proud Captain of the G-5."

He met her eyes, and nodded.

* * *

Night on the pirate ship. Sleepily, contentedly, everyone helped clean up after the party and filed first into the bathroom and then into the chambers. There had been a brief discussion about what clothes the three Cursed should change into after bathing, but at the suggestion Black-leg and Tashigi looked at each other and agreed silently that they were still not quite ready to...be so familiar with their bodies. It would lead to some highly awkward situations, after all, if they did end up returning to their original genders. Black-leg quickly beat the same idea into Roronoah's brain (unfortunately after the doctor had already bandaged her chest). So the ocean salt and the salt-stained clothes remained.

"So where do you wanna sleep?" Strawhat asked Tashigi between yawns. They stood on the grass, the rest of the crew already preparing for sleep inside the ship.

Tashigi blinked. "Uh..."

"There're sofas by the table. But you're glasses girl, so maybe you wanna sleep with Nami and Robin?"

"But - I'm a marine. And you're pirates." Different roles. How could he trust him to be in the same room as his sleeping crew?

Strawhat blinked back at him. "So? You're a good guy. You can sleep where you want."

The roles evaporated like dust in Tashigi's hands.

"Hey, Luffy." Roronoah stepped out from the shadows of a doorway. "You've got second watch. Get some sleep."

"Awwww, Zorooooooo!" he whined, but broke off in a yawn, exactly like a child who is tired but nonetheless unwilling to go to bed. Tashigi pursed her lips. Did that make Roronoah like a mother - no no no, stop thinking, brain. Just...stop.

"Shut up and go to sleep already. And close the door behind you, I've got first watch."

"...M'kayyyy..."

Strawhat stepped past his first mate and disappeared into the men's chambers, shutting the door as he was told. Roronoah stood silently. Tashigi stared at her figure under the moonlight, uncertain.

Finally, she spoke. "It's on you," she said, and cut across the grass to reach the foremast. She grabbed onto the ropes and swung up.

She was headed to the crow's nest, and it seemed clear to Tashigi that she intended for him to follow. Hesitantly, he wrapped his palms around the lower ropes and began to climb.

* * *

**Words of the Sheep: **Sanji's explanation for his intense homophobia is just for this story - Oda probably just meant for it to be comedic. I didn't quite intend matters of sexual identity to play a big role in here, but I needed it to explain Sanji's reaction; and now I need to explain, for my own sake, that his views do not reflect my own. (I am a total Zoro. As you can probably tell.) Just wanted to make sure I didn't offend anyone.

Also, I am convinced that Sanji's mouth contains some sort of superhuman filter that allows him to smoke and be a literally kickass cook. Because in real life, cooks _cannot smoke_. It's like, really bad - kills your tastebuds and your lungs in addition to getting into the food. (But Sanji makes smoking _while tasting his cooking_ an art form, so it's okay.)

Also, I call Robin's normal hands/limbs/self "rooted" and everything else "blossomed" cuz she's like, a flower or whatever. Flower power. It just sounds cool to me.

Also, I had to do embarrassingly extensive research on the Thousand Sunny's layout. Geez it's gorgeous and complicated. I don't remember ever actually seeing Zoro climb up to the Crow's Nest, so this is mostly based on what the Wiki said.

Also, _so many TashigiFans zomg!_ I love you, and all my reviewers and favs and followers and readers in general. Please be patient with me TT - TT Summer vacation, as it turns out, is not a vacation at all when you're me.


	8. The Feminine Gender

She stood in front of the windows, awash in moonlight and shadow, a faint silhouette with three pins of silver-gold light below her left ear. She waited for Tashigi to emerge from the hatch before moving, picking up four bamboo _kendo_ swords from where the smaller gym gear was stored.

"Sometimes Brook likes to spar," she explained quietly, and tossed one at him.

Tashigi snatched it from the air, already feeling the adrenaline and old anger surging through his veins, washing all else away. "So you finally accept," he hissed.

"I said I would. I keep my promises."

He removed Shigure from his belt and laid it carefully to the side of the crow's nest. Roronoah did the same with her three katanas. By tacit rule of conduct they stationed themselves five paces away from each other, bowed. Her cloak was loose-fitting, concealing anything that might differentiate her from a man, but Tashigi could feel his own muscles promise an unfamiliar raw power. This would not be the same as their fight in Loguetown.

"Ready?" Roronoah asked, sliding a _kendo_ sword between her teeth.

"Begin," Tashigi replied. And advanced.

The crack of wood against wood resonated through the closed room. Three streaks blurred across Tashigi's vision. He moved to block.

And the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, a searing pain shooting from his shoulder where the blow had connected. He gasped, struggling to right himself. Too fast. That was too fast. Indeed, this was nothing like Loguetown - the difference in ability was even greater than before. He got back to his feet shakily.

Roronoah simply stood, and regarded him in silence.

"That was only one loss," Tashigi snapped, lifting his sword. He was already breathing hard, his hands were sweating around the sword grip. He had simply been too careless that first round. He would try again, and this time would be better. "Ready?"

Roronoah nodded his head slightly. "Begin."

He charged again, Haki fully equipped as he tried to predict the movements of those three wild swords and break through their pattern. _Soru_.

The sword in Roronoah's left hand struck him hard across the thigh. He stumbled and landed face first on the smooth floor.

"This can't be," he hissed. He slammed his fists on the floor and struggled to push himself up. The third fight, and the third loss, and he nearly swore out loud. He had trained for so long, and so hard - as a woman she had fought from the very beginning, when her parents had insisted that swords were not for girls to wield, and so on her own she had taught herself the basics of sword fighting; against the will of everyone close to her, she had joined the marines, only to find that men underestimated her even there, told her it was impossible for a woman like her to lead, again and again until she finally clawed her way through the ranks to meet Smoker; and Smoker, at last, had understood.

But now, beaten to the ground for a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth, the injustices of the world came crashing back into him and the woman he once was. Every time he got back up, shaking in rage and struggling against the burning in his eyes, he was struck down again in moments.

"This isn't fair," he managed to say somewhere between the seventeenth and the eighteenth fights, panting from exertion.

Roronoah shifted her weight faintly. Around the sword held in her mouth, she smirked condescendingly. "Pitiful," she said. "Even as a man you're still so weak? How useless."

Tashigi clenched the sword in his hands so hard the wood cracked faintly. "_Soru_."

Roronoah twisted the sword from his grasp easily. "Another win. The score now stands eighteen to zero. This is getting kinda old, don't you think? Oh, here we go," she stabbed him in the chest, forcing him back, "nineteen to zero."

"Damn you," Tashigi actually said out loud, but he was too preoccupied to be amazed at his own rudeness. "The world cannot contain such monsters as you...! Why can't I defeat you!?"

_Crack__!_ Tashigi reeled back, a new bruise over her forehead smarting.

"Twenty to zero. Admit defeat already," Roronoah said, edging closer to a laugh.

It was tempting, then, oh so tempting to simply put down the sword and do as she said - humiliation was painful, but his limbs were aching, bruises were swelling across his entire body, his lungs cried for a respite, and it was clear that he was losing anyways. The strength of the one facing him was simply impossible to overcome.

But Tashigi could not accept defeat.

"Enough!" he cried. He threw down the _kendo_ sword. "This is disgraceful!" His voice broke; he didn't even try to cover the tears as they spilled down his face, dripped to the floor. "Pick up your swords! Let us duel properly, and settle this once and for all!"

For a second, it seemed like Roronoah would refuse. She froze, her breath held, shoulders tensed. And then she shuddered into motion again.

"Real swords," she breathed. "Sounds good to me." She looked up at the roof of the crow's nest. "Not here though."

"Then where?"

"On the deck. Can't breathe here."

"Fine."

They placed their _kendo_ swords where they belonged and gathered their katanas, then descended down the hatch, Roronoah first. Two pairs of boots connected with gently waving grass, swords clinking faintly in their sheathes. They took their respective stations again, five paces apart, and bowed. Tashigi ran his fingers over Shigure's hilt.

"Ready?" he asked.

The moon was bright, the sky cloudless. The woman's dark eyes glinted with a light that might have been excitement, sorrow buried inside, nostalgia glistening on the surface. She slipped the cloak off her shoulders so it fell around her waist, rippling slightly in the sea breeze, and her bandaged figure became crisp and bold against the moonlight. She drew all three swords and held Wado Ichimonji between her teeth.

"Begin," she replied.

Tashigi attacked, threw all his confusion and frustration and newfound man's strength at the woman who made a mockery of his existence. Roronoah, for the briefest moment, seemed to falter; but then she surged forward like a tidal wave, cut through his defense and threw him onto his back. Shigure was wrenched out of his hand, skittering to a stop a few feet away. The pale steel of Wado Ichimonji sank into the grass half an inch from his neck, angled across his skin precariously.

He gasped, heart still racing uselessly at a thousand knots. Roronoah's face was close, so close; he could hear her suck in a breath and then sigh quietly, could see traces of sweat on her face and arms. She smiled a little at him.

"My twenty-first victory," she said around the sword. Her tone was serious.

Tashigi went limp. He reached a hand up and covered his face, and only then realized he was crying thickly.

"Damn you," he choked. "Why don't you kill me?"

"Kill you?" she echoed.

"Yes! I'd rather die than live in shame!" One hand still covered his eyes, but his other fist thumped against the deck in frustration. "Don't you see!? Don't you understand!? I'm a man now - you shouldn't have a problem with killing me anymore!"

Roronoah was quiet. She withdrew to stand a few feet away from Tashigi, sheathed Shusui and Kitetsu and took Wado Ichimonji from her mouth. This last sword, though, she held, rolling it back and forth in her hand slowly.

"Twenty-one losses," she finally said, "is not so many."

Tashigi sat up and sobbed, "What are you saying!?"

"Twenty-one is a small number when compared to two thousand and one - when compared to the rest of your life. And there are ways to lose a battle and keep both your honor and your life." She sighed, and sat down with her back against the ship's railing, only half looking at Tashigi. "Look. I'll tell you two things. One: I'm as strong as I was before the Curse, I knew this the moment I fought the cook. You, on the other hand, are weaker."

Tashigi stopped crying from sheer shock. That...that was impossible. It simply didn't make any sense.

"But - I'm a man now," he said weakly. "Like, I have muscles. Biology."

She snorted. "Who the fuck cares about biology? It's about spirit! I'm still me, so I'm just as strong. You don't even know _what_ you are, how do you expect to suddenly power up now?"

"That...makes no sense whatsoever." Except it kind of did. Roronoah must have seen the reluctant realization in his face, because she only scoffed and moved on to the next point.

"Two: I'm not like the cook. I can still fight men. I still can't fight you. And women - I could always fight them. I just..." She jerked her head awkwardly away, struggling to push the words off of her tongue and into the air. "I don't like seeing them fall. When a woman fights, she's a warrior just like anyone else, and it's like - you're like...there was this girl, alright, this girl I once knew, and she was a swordswoman and she would have been the strongest one there ever was. She was stronger than anyone. And she was just so...beautiful with a sword. And I don't like cutting down people like her, I don't like seeing them fall. That's all there is to it." And she turned to glare at him, as if daring him to make fun of the confession.

Tashigi parted his mouth a little, blinked away the last of his tears. "...Oh."

He tried to digest this information. It wasn't going down very easily.

"This still hurts my pride."

"Augh," Roronoah groaned, and banged her head back against the rails. "Well then, damn you, too."

Tashigi laughed in spite of himself, and wiped his face with his sleeve.

"I'm kind of glad I lost, actually," he said.

A black eye stared at him in honest surprise. "Well that's rich, coming from someone who practically begged for death after losing."

"But you wouldn't do it," he replied. "It's frustrating - but I knew you wouldn't."

She shrugged lazily. Tashigi looked at the careful, calm, almost - dare he say it - loving way she held the white sword, not like it was a delicate heirloom but rather an old friend who she knew would never break.

"If I won as a man against a woman, it wouldn't have done anything," he explained. "It wouldn't have let me prove myself. It would have been a tainted victory. This way, it wouldn't be like I only won because I had become a man."

He stood, and retrieved Shigure from the ground, sliding it back into his sheathe.

"But I'll take that sword, I swear it. I'll win as a woman against you as a man, and then I'll be able to claim Wado Ichimonji properly. Be prepared."

Tashigi turned back around and looked down at Roronoah, chin lifted a little with his old indignation returned. Roronoah returned the look with a haughty smile of her own. It was like a handshake - a promise under the moon, a vow forged by clashing steel.

"Any time," she said, and stood up. "I'm stronger than you anyways."

"What - how rude!" She laughed, and stepped around him to enter the men's chambers. Tashigi followed her to the door, blushing madly. "I'll make you take back those words when I win!"

"Yeah, yeah." She reemerged, a drowsy pirate captain wobbling behind her.

"Zoroooo, who...oh, hey glasses girl," he yawned. "You were keeping Zoro company?"

Tashigi fumbled a little. "Well, I suppose you could say that."

Roronoah crossed her arms and smirked. "Hey, Luffy. Marine's got something to say to you."

"Ah, yes." Tashigi nodded. "Strawhat Luffy. I have a request to make, if it's alright with your swordsmaster and your cook."

"Hrmnr?" He planted his hat on top of his head and blinked sleepily at Tashigi. "What's it?" he asked.

"I would like to be returned to my original gender. I want to be a woman again." Tashigi smiled. "Because my feminine gender is my pride."

The boy blinked again, and his eyes suddenly cleared. He beamed. "Okay," he said. "This means I'll get to meet the mystery whale, right!? This'll be so much fun! Sanji!" He leaped past Roronoah and banged on the door to the girl's chambers. "Sanji, everyone, come out!" he called at the top of his lungs.

"Hey - Luffy, you don't have to wake _everyone_ up, it's not even dawn! I haven't even slept yet!"

But inside both chambers, murmurings already began, as the Strawhat crew was jostled from sleep by their overly enthusiastic captain.

"C'mere, everyone! Sanji, Sanji! You're gonna turn into a guy again! Breakfast! Raise the anchor! We're gonna go meet the mystery whale!"

* * *

**Words of the Sheep:** Ya see what I did there? Kudos for you, then. It kind of fascinates me how similar Tashigi is to Zoro in some ways - she's a swordsman, through and through, except she always ends up losing.

Aaaaand the internal conflict is resolved. Yay! This fic was supposed to be funny and lighthearted, and then it got all...serious, lol. Tashigi, this is all your fault (but it's okay because I like serious stuff).


	9. Pink Suits Her

It was an hour until sunrise, though the sky was already beginning to lighten at the edges, when Luffy bounced through the entire length of the Thousand Sunny projecting his voice into every nook and cranny. It was clear there was no present danger - it was just Luffy being Luffy - but still. Sanji woke up immediately.

"Oh no, that adorable rubber idiot is calling for me!" she cried.

There was only one emperor-sized bed in the ladies' bedroom, which Nami and Robin shared, and the two had politely declined letting Sanji sleep with them (not that she had really wanted to, but the bed looked so _soft_). They had been gracious enough, though, to lend Sanji a sofa and a blanket for the night. She leaped out of them now, cooing, "I must attend to my captain's needs!"

"Pipe down, Sanji," Nami grumbled with her face in a pillow. She raised her head and met Sanji's eyes. Something in her expression twitched. She threw her face back into the pillow with a muffled, "_Pffffffft_." Sanji wrinkled her forehead suspiciously.

Robin sat up from the bed and stretched luxuriously before turning to her. "Go ahead, Sanji," Robin said with a smile that revealed nothing. "We'll be right with you."

One eye still trained on the two ladies, Sanji moved toward the door. She was almost there by the time she finally noticed. Her steps froze like she had turned to stone.

On the bed, Nami couldn't help it anymore. She burst out laughing.

* * *

"GRAAAAAAHHHH!"

The door to the women's place exploded outwards like it had been hit by one of Franky's cannons. One pissed off cook came shrieking out of the room three seconds later, obscured by smoke and the smoldering remains of the door.

The marine yelped in surprise. By knee-jerk reaction Zoro grabbed the hilt of Wado, eyebrow raised inquisitively. Her male crewmates piled outside the men's place, sufficiently roused from their slumber to gape at the spectacle.

"Sanji!" Luffy dashed from the aquarium back to the deck and said cheerfully, "Breakfast!"

"NOOOOOOOO!"

Luffy paused, blinking.

"DON'T LOOK!" Sanji screeched. "DON'T LOOK, DON'T LOOK!"

Through the dust, Zoro saw a flash of pink dash to get into the men's place. Her one eye narrowed. She lowered herself slightly, then, quick as a snake striking, stuck her foot out across the door. The pink thing tripped spectacularly.

"AGHKASDDKFKL-_oomph_!"

The dust was settling. Zoro saw what lay face-down halfway in the door, and snorted.

"Sanji, what's wrong?" Luffy squatted beside Sanji, genuinely concerned. "Do you need Chopper?"

A long and mournful wail that should have been impossible for a human to produce ripped out of Sanji's throat. She curled up into a pink, frilly ball on the floor, sniffling to herself.

"Really, Sanji, there's no need to be so overdramatic about it," Nami sighed, stepping out of the women's place with Robin.

The cook leaped up immediately. "This is all _your_ fault! I knew I couldn't trust you two - I'm going to kill you, bitches!" she sobbed - and, standing at full height, she accidentally gave everyone a clear view of herself. In a ring around Sanji, the men's jaws dropped until they hit the wooden floor. Franky gave a wolf whistle.

Artfully arranged on her slim frame was a pink sleeveless cocktail dress - it hugged her curves elegantly and flared out with intricate lace designs around her knees. Her black shoes had been replaced by a pair of gem-studded fuchsia stilettos. All in all she looked like a deranged barbie doll coming home from a party, scruffy blonde hair sticking up every which way in the morning light.

"Pink suits her, does it not?" Robin chuckled, apparently pleased with her handiwork. Nami slapped a palm over her mouth to keep from laughing. Privately, Zoro had to admire the combined abilities of the former assassin and thief.

"It does not!" Sanji shrieked.

Zoro snorted again. "Princess of Retardia looks the role now," she muttered under her breath.

Sanji whirled around. "What was that!?"

The marine flinched. "Is - is this in-crew fighting?" he hissed frantically, confused.

Luffy laughed. "You look good, Sanji!"

Sanji snapped her head to look at him. "I - what?"

"I'm hungry! Let's eat breakfast! Glasses guy has stuff to say, too!"

The marine blinked. "Oh - yes, I do, but your crew is -"

Zoro brushed his shoulder as she walked past. "You haven't seen in-crew fighting. Relax." They filed into the seats by the kitchen table, the marine hesitantly following Zoro and sitting down next to her.

Sanji wrung her hands while Luffy dragged her into the kitchen and turned on the light. "Luffy, dear, what did you say?"

"Breakfast! Breakfast!"

"No, before that, I-"

Chopper tugged on the hem of Sanji's dress. "Are you okay, Sanji?"

"I'm fine Chopper - Luffy -"

"Food!"

Sanji started preparing breakfast - a quick fruit salad and some sandwiches, hands and knife a blur - as she persisted, "Luffy, what did you say?"

Usopp punched her in the shoulder. "He said you look good in the dress!"

A blue eye blinked. Slowly, pink blush spread around her cheeks. "R-really?"

He shrugged. "It's Luffy, though, so can't put much weight to it."

"...Oh."

A gloom fell thickly over Sanji's shoulders. The blade fell mechanically.

"But I mean, you really do look great in that, Sanji!" he said quickly. "Suits you perfectly!"

She looked up. She had finished cutting the fruit and sandwiches and was absentmindedly arranging them on three large platters. "It does?"

Usopp gave her a thumbs-up. "Sure it does! You look good in anything, really, but this one takes the cake!"

She gave a little gasp. She dropped her hands and looked down, so her bangs fell over both eyes. "I - I..."

"Uh - what, was it something I said? What's wrong?" In a panic, he edged closer and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Sanji?"

Sanji threw herself at Usopp with arms spread wide and lips puckered.

"I love you, my darling!"

"GYAAAHHHHHHH!"

He dodged the first attack and started to run, screaming all the while, "Oh God what have I done!?" She chased him around the kitchen table, and they both ran so fast they looked like one pink and orange blur.

"Hey look!" Luffy laughed, shoving a mega-sandwich into his mouth. "Sanji and Usopp are dancing!"

Chopper blinked. "They are?"

Zoro shrugged. He popped open the morning's first tankard of sake, too lazy to pour it into an actual cup. "Sure."

"Yohoho, young love!" Brook pulled out his guitar and began to play some kind of dance music, which was promptly joined by Franky: "Attack we keep it on the dance floor / Discotech meet me at the back door..."

From the corner of her eye Zoro watched the marine shake his head, laugh, and take a piece of fruit. Content, she ate a sandwich and washed it down with alcohol.

"So we're gonna go find the whale again!" Luffy announced.

Nami dodged the spray of food from his mouth, frowning. "Right now? That's why you went around waking us all up?"

"Yeah! Zoro and Glasses Guy want to, so I was gonna ask Sanji if it was okay."

Sanji stopped abruptly by Luffy's chair. Usopp yelped and skidded to a stop just before smashing into her back, leaving a trail of smoking kitchen floor behind him. Franky shot him a look.

"What is it you desire of me, captain?" the cook gushed. "Name anything and I will endeavor to fulfill it!"

Then, to Zoro's surprise, the marine stood from the table and looked straight at Sanji. "It is my request, actually," he said. "I hate to ask this of pirates; but last night I made the decision that I wish to be returned to my original body, and therefore you and Roronoah Zoro run the risk of becoming men again, as well. I apologize for my selfishness, but this is something that I must do."

The marine stood tall, gaze locked on Sanji's. Now that Zoro looked closer at him under the bright kitchen lights, she realized with a very small pang of guilt that bruises were forming all around his face and arms, and probably everywhere else that was covered in clothes, too. His long hair was coming undone from the clip on the back of his head, and accumulated sweat and sea salt plastered lone black strands all around his neck and forehead. He looked a mess.

But his eyes were bright and determined, just like _her_ again. Zoro smiled. She knew it had been right to fight him with all three swords - it was the least she could do to respect that spirit. Now nothing would stand in that marine's way anymore.

"Of course!" Sanji crooned without any hesitation. "If you so desire, I will gladly help you become a woman again!"

Luffy inhaled one last sandwich and stood on the table. "Then it's settled!" He threw both fists up into the air and whooped. "We're gonna go meet the mystery whale!"

* * *

The usual complaints from the crew aside, the rest of the meal was spent discussing logistics. Zoro kept dozing off in the middle of the conversation, but she managed to piece together that Nami was going to try calling the whale like the marine had done by the G-5's ship, and then Zoro would get to beat the crap out of the bastard and force it to change them back into their proper genders. Or something. Whatever, she'd figure out what to do when the time came. When all the food was gone everyone left the kitchen to do whatever on the deck, besides the cook, who gathered the dishes and started washing them in the sink. Zoro got up and went to her side.

"Here." She slammed the empty sake tankard onto the counter.

"What the hell, you bitch - put it down nicely!" Sanji was still wearing the dress, careful not to splash soap water on it. There weren't many dishes - soon she was picking up the tankard and scrubbing it out in running water.

Zoro waited. Sanji finished washing the tankard, dried it with a towel. She eyed Zoro suspiciously.

"What do you want, shitface?" she hissed.

Zoro took her time. She leaned against the counter, back to Sanji, and watched the kids play through the kitchen door. Sanji put the tankard away and wiped down the counter and sink. Then Zoro heard the towel being slapped down and footsteps stomping closer, and she smirked.

"I said," Sanji spat, stalking around the counter to face Zoro, "what do you fucking want?"

"You're such a bitch."

She froze. Thin lips opened, closed, and Sanji grew pink with rage. Zoro noted that her cheeks matched her dress really quite well.

"And you're a bigger bitch. If that's all you have to say I'm slamming these _high-heeled shoes_ straight into your ass and sending you through that nice reinforced door frame Franky had the foresight to make."_  
_

"And you'll go back to being a bastard again, just like that?"

Sanji put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Oh, so that's what this is all about. Cute wittle Zolo is worried about how I feel?" She giggled and added in a high, sugary voice, "How sw_eet."_

"You're still wearing the dress." Zoro tried to sound disgusted. This was Sanji, so it wasn't hard. "Just because some idiot said you look good in it, you'll wear a dress you practically ripped off when you first saw it on you. Bitch."

"Hey, that was - that was because of a traumatic incident back in my manhood days, alright? It took a moment to adjust."

"Excuses, excuses. Can you even fight in that?"

"I can kick your ass very well, thank you very much."

"So you like wearing dresses now. You like going around with shoes that could twist your ankle if you run too fast and clothes that show off your cunt every time you kick."

"Don't be jealous," Sanji growled, "just because I happen to enjoy fancier clothes than that moldy rag you're wearing, fucking asshole-for-a-mouth. Nothing but shit comes out of there, I swear."

"You like showing off your femininity now."

"Because I _have to_," she snapped. "You think I don't feel weird doing this? All the memories of my days in Hell are torturing me, even now! Right now! It sucks! But if I told everyone how I felt - if I said I'm honestly glad Tashigi decided to turn back into a woman, if I got back in my suit and told everyone I'm proud of how I was born, goddammit, and that I hate having to be someone I'm not for the rest of my goddamned shitty life just because of some stupid whale - how do you think she'll_ feel?"_

A pause.

_"He'll_ feel."

Zoro cocked her head. Sanji glared at her with an icy blue eye, daring her to say something in response. So she just shrugged.

"You can call her a she," she said. "Gonna be a woman again, soon, anyways." And, satisfied, she started out toward the kitchen door.

"Wait - what? The _hell_ was that? _What?_" the cook sputtered.

Zoro glanced over her shoulder and smirked. "Just making sure we all feel the same way," she said. "And by the way, I don't care if you wear a dress or not. I can fight you just fine like this, anyways." And she stepped into the sunlight.

* * *

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Nami muttered in her bikini. She looked over the side of the Mini Merry and into the glistening water, apprehensive. "You sure it'll come? Are we even close enough? How loud do I have to scream?"

"We should be within range," Tashigi said beside her. "Don't worry, it'll hear."

Nami looked at him, raking her eyes over his ill-fitting shirt and too-tight pants for the hundredth time. Female Zoro and Sanji were kind of cute, but male Tashigi had weirded her out for a while. Tashigi's femininity was a huge part of her personality - the man standing beside her had seemed oddly bereft, missing something essential. He looked a little better now, though. Zoro had done something to him over the night. She smirked, running through the various delectable possibilities.

"Are you ready?" Tashigi asked.

Nami blinked. "Oh, yeah. Sure."

"Go Nami!" Luffy shouted from his perch on the Sunny's railing (out of concern for his Devil Fruit condition combined with his...Luffy condition). "Yeah! Yeah!"

For the sake of Tashigi's, Zoro's, and Sanji's personalities, Nami thought. She stood up, took a deep breath, and leaped off the boat. She slid into the cold water easily. Once fully submerged, she cupped her hands around her mouth and called into the dark blue depths:

"O great Sea God, please answer my call - as a daughter of the seas I ask for you!"

Bubbles flew around her face and befuddled her tongue; sputtering, she grabbed onto the edge of the Mini Merry and resurfaced.

"Is that it?" she panted.

Tashigi nodded at her, then fixed a bright black gaze to a point in the distance. "That should be all."

"I wonder how the Sea God detects the vibrations underwater," she mused. She climbed back on board and toweled herself dry. "Normal whales rely on lower pitches so the sound travels further, but human voices are..."

Tashigi was still. Nami glanced at his face, then looked in the direction of his gaze.

On the horizon, a long white streak broke the surface of the water and moved steadily closer.

"He's here," he breathed.

* * *

**Words of the Sheep: **...sorry about the delay...yeah.

Random Reg the FG trivia. Oda calls the girls' room "the girls' room." Fem!Sanji calls it "the ladies' bedroom." Zoro calls it "the women's place." The Strawhat pervs call it "the forbidden garden." Tashigi calls it "the women's chambers." Luffy calls it "where Nami and Robin go at night."

The song Brook played is Discotech by Young Love which I have never heard but I wiki'd it and I thought it was funny.


End file.
